As I held infant Amy, rocking her to sleep, I’d talk to her and tell her how much I looked forward to having conversations together. You know the joke: We spend the first part of their lives teaching them how to talk and the rest of their lives trying to get them to shut up. As I held infant Evan, rocking him to sleep, I’d have the same discussion. Eventually they did learn to talk and we’ve had some fascinating conversations.
Today Amy, 7 years old, asked, "What is radioactivity? Is it bad?" So I proceeded to talk to Amy about radio waves, the visual spectrum, light, ear drums, we drew an atom, and a water molecule. She listened and questioned and conjectured. That was fun!
Parenting Tip #423: Use a tape recorder to record a minute of your infant’s sounds every week. Their noises change from week to week and you will enjoy listening to the tape when they are older. Also, they love to hear their own noises so that tape in a Playskool tape player (vintage? Okay.. get a digital recorder) is good for about 20 minutes of babysitting or so I am told. This was some advice from a friend that I failed to follow with some regrets.