Talking

I remember one thing I really struggled with when Elise was a baby was trying to talk to her a lot before she became verbal.  All the "experts" and baby websites emphasize the importance of talking to (with?) your baby in order to help develop their language skills but I had a really hard time doing it when it was just the two of us sitting at home.  It just felt really unnatural to me and we really spent of our time in silence.  I would, however, try to make regular trips to Target with her (when it was right across the street!) and I'd basically narrate everything in the store.  That was easy since there was so much visual stimuli and different things to describe.  I would go, (usually to buy something small like foil), put her in the Ergo, and then spend about 15-20 minutes there walking around looking like a crazy person talking to myself in a very excited high-pitched tone.  Like-- "Do you see what this is?!!  This is a lampshade!  It has pink sparkles on it, see?!  What do you think?  Should we buy it?  No, I don't want to buy a sparkly pink lampshade!  Oh, what do we see here?!!  This is a picture frame made of seashells!  Do you know where seashells come from??"

Anyway, I'm not sure if any of that really worked but at least it worked to assuage some of my guilt.  :)  Now that Elise is full-on talking, I don't feel pressured to have to talk to her, thank God.  But I do find myself coming home from work tired and feeling like I need to engage with her about interesting new things in the world.  I had to run to Target tonight and I usually go by myself, but I decided to take Elise with me and talk it out again.  It was so neat to be able to converse with her and listen to her questions and comments.  This girl loves to talk!

Thought I'd jot down what Elise did when she got home after school today...just to document a typical day.  We try to pick her up between 4 and 5, ideally closer to 4.

- come home and eat yogurt
- go outside and ride her scooter (10 min)
- play on the swing and so crazy acrobatics on it (20-30 min)
- decides she wants to cut leaves with scissors (20 min)
- pokes a stick into the holes of a decorative table (10 min)
- throws balls into our barren vegetable garden (10 min)

And then it's dinnertime (around 6:30), which is when it starts to get dark.  I'm kind of dreading daylight savings because it will cut an hour of sunlight at the end of the day.  She really needs that outdoor play!