pocketses · Tuesday March 9, 2010
Caleb has discovered pockets, and enjoys having his hands in them. Sometimes he’ll stuff his hands in his pockets and walk around that way. He managed to go up a flight of stairs without holding onto or leaning against anything, just because he wanted to keep his hands in his pockets.
Another unrelated thing that I don’t want to start a new post for: Caleb fell out of his crib the other day. Clint was the one to go and see why he was crying, and when he opened the door, Caleb immediately started, in his incoherent babbling way, trying to explain what happened. Amidst all the incoherent babbling, the word “bear” kept coming up, and judging by the fact that all of the things in his crib had been thrown out on the floor, the best we can guess is that what he was trying to say through his tears would have sounded something like this, if he were capable of sentences: “Well, you see (sniffle), I was awake and throwing the stuff out of my crib (sniffle) — you know, like I often do, and, and, (sniffle) then I got bored, and, and, I wanted to play with my (sniffle) bear, but it was on the floor (sniffle), so I tried to climb out and get it, but I (sniffle) fell and hurt myself (wail).”
— Jennifer
hands and smiles · Tuesday March 9, 2010
Some brief notes about Josh:
This past week, he started smiling, which of course is fun and makes him more enjoyable to interact with.
In the past couple days, he has begun to manage to find his hands to suck on. However, since his nervous system is still quite immature, I think he still needs at least one arm swaddled when he’s settling down to sleep — he still bonks himself in the face quite regularly.
We had our six-week visit with the midwife today — our last one, until/unless we are expecting again. Josh weighs 13 pounds with his clothes on! — so, maybe 12 1/2 pounds.
I think I weighed in today at about 148 pounds.
Clint came to the appointment too, which was good because Caleb was more of a handful than usual. Afterward we enjoyed a nice lunch at a nearby deli.
— Jennifer
Tyger! Tyger! · Saturday March 6, 2010
Since Josh’s arrival, Caleb has begun to treat his stuffed animals more like babies — covering them with a blanket, putting them down for naps in Josh’s carseat or crib, and giving them diapers. He still likes doing the usual — pretending to feed them with a spoon, offering them Cheerios, giving them sips of water, etc.
He has become particularly fond of a large stuffed tiger that wonderful friends of ours gave him a few weeks ago. When we see pictures of tigers in his books, he likes to talk about them (his words for ‘tiger’, ‘tractor’ and ‘daddy’ sound pretty much the same, though they’re slowly becoming more distinguishable), and eventually he gets so excited that he goes and gets his tiger from wherever it might happen to be — even if it’s on a different floor of the house — and brings it back to where we were reading.
I have started trying to talk to him more in Korean; it surprises me how little it fazes him when all of a sudden everything is called something else — we started with his picture books featuring animals, since I know many of those in Korean. I say in Korean the same sort of thing I say in English — “Where’s the {dog, tiger, cat, etc.}? — There it is!” and I point to it — I try to use full sentences in order to alert him that these are Korean words, rather than English words, and so he can start grasping the grammatical features of Korean. So far, he definitely understands dog (멍멍이) and tiger (호랑이); he’s starting to get elephant and butterfly, and possibly pig and horse.
— Jennifer
language acquisition · Saturday February 27, 2010
As an English major, watching Caleb explore language is totally fascinating. He isn’t even past the one-word stage yet, but I can see him exploring the rules of English. It’s so wild that once kids start talking, they pretty much never put words in the wrong order. Their mistakes tend to be over-application of rules to exception cases, rather than the kinds of mistakes that a foreign learner would make.
Caleb gets a lot of mileage out of saying “eep?” It is his way of making a request of any sort. It’s amazing how easy it can be sometimes, to tell what he wants. As you may recall, he has been pointing to things and saying, “eep?” as in, “what’s that?” for quite a while now. He’s finally getting to where he will point to things and say what the thing is. He really likes to point out pictures of apples, for example. Clocks are another one. Oftentimes, he’ll point to a picture of a clock and say “clock” (which actually sounds something like his word for ‘hot’, but I can tell the difference). I say, “Yeah, that’s a clock.” And then he points to the clock in the kitchen and excitedly says “clock!” This can go back and forth for quite a while.
He also likes ‘nose’, ‘ear’, and ‘eye’. He likes to hear us talk about what he’s pointing to. He’ll say, “eye” (yet another subtly nuanced ‘ah’ which could sound like hot or clock) and touch his eye. We say, “Yep, that’s Caleb’s eye.” Then he points to someone else’s eye (either one of ours, or a stuffed animal’s). “Yeah, that’s {Daddy’s, Mommy’s, Josh’s, the tiger’s} eye.” And again, he repeats, “eye!” And around it goes, till he has talked about everybody’s eye. I imagine this is helping solidify his understanding of English possessives.
He loves this narration that we provide for what he’s doing. In the past couple days, he has started doing things just to hear us talk about it. Prepositions and verbs seem to be the main thing here. He’ll take a stuffed animal, e.g., a giraffe, and have it sit somewhere. “Eep?” (he’s asking us to narrate.) “The giraffe is sitting in the rocking chair.” Then he hurriedly climbs up into said chair with the stuffed animal and awaits our ongoing narration (“Caleb is sitting in the rocking chair.”) He really likes this. Tonight he spent a great deal of time taking a bear, having it sit on a table, in his highchair, in the rocking chair, on the stair, on a pillow, on the couch … you get the idea.
If only those of us who wanted to learn a second language could have someone repeat the most basic of sentences at our request, for days on end.
I recently read a really good piece, though, on a Korean’s experience learning English, having immigrated here when he was 16 years old, as well as some fascinating facts from researchers on the subject of first language acquisition. So, in some ways, while first-language acquisition is a totally unique experience that can only be accomplished in the early months and years of one’s life, it’s interesting to see Caleb now actively doing what a second-language acquirer has to do to grasp a new language.
It’s unfortunate that my Korean is quite mediocre, and I can’t just ramble at him in Korean the way I can in English. If he ever learns Korean, he won’t have the intuitive grasp of syntax the way he would if I could talk to him more naturally. At least the fact that he can’t understand my grandma doesn’t stop them from having a great conversation. She asks him a question, and pauses, and he replies, usually by saying ‘da’, or talking about things in the room, or just other babbling. They have a good time on the phone.
— Jennifer
gurgle · Wednesday February 24, 2010
We got a decent deal on a used crib from someone on Craigslist (we had a nice family outing that night — we got the crib and then went out for dinner), and I put it together today in Josh’s room. I attached the mobile that we used back when Caleb was a baby, and I put Josh in it to see how he’d like the mobile. He made some very happy gurgles at it. I never thought about it at the time, but Caleb didn’t really do much in the way of gurgles at this age. He would clearly be happy, and soundlessly smile, but Josh seems to vocalize more. In fact, he is quite noisy during sleep transitions, making it a little nerve-wracking to be in the same room when he’s sleeping — you think he’s stirring and starting to wake up, so you lie there, tensed, listening for him to sound hungry or distressed so you can pick him up, when in fact, he’s just making some noise and is about to fall right back asleep.
— Jennifer