Baby diary: 33 weeks 4 days
Aug. 4th, 2019 06:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petronia I've been trying to write a longer update in my newsletter, but there have been more milestones. My mom said she saw him pass a toy from hand to hand last weekend, but I didn't see it until yesterday -- when he passed a teething biscuit from left hand to right in order to get a better grip on it. I also saw him grope for a bit of food he dropped next to his leg without looking. And he is starting to pull himself up to kneeling, or even standing (once, using a diaper box). Just got IKEA boxes for all my bottom shelves, only to find he can now knock down hardcovers from the next shelf up. [screaming emoji] At least he hasn't yet tried to eat a whole book, but that's probably just because I'm vigilant about it.
There's also been some language development. Alan still mostly hums and doesn't babble syllables. But "Ahm" or "mum" now means give me milk, "mama" means pick me up and get me out of here. So me, but different functions of me. XD; He also understands "patty cake" (bash mom's hand). I read in the Paris Review blog that Charles Darwin also recorded his son's first word as "mum," meaning food or give me food.
My fandom friend N tweeted this paper about boy-girl differences in parental time investments, studied in US/Canada/UK. It posits that boys' lag in language development and therefore school scores can be (at least partly) explained by parental time investment in activities like reading/singing/counting, as early on as 9 months, and the gap can be explained by opportunity cost -- parents may not be conscious of it, but given limited time, it's more rewarding to take a boy to the park than to read them a book, compared to a girl. This tracks with something I've been worried about: I assumed I'd sit and read my child storybooks all the time, but in actuality I have to force myself to do it a couple of times a week. Alan shows little signs of understanding and always tries to bash the book out of my hands. :P On the other hand, I sing songs to him a lot, and teach him the names of things directly.
Fascinatingly, part of the paper is about Quebec's subsidized daycare program, which appears to help boys more in this respect. Of course, in daycare the kids are read to in groups, so the time investment is the same. But the parents also read more to the boys once they're in daycare! The authors posit this is because the kids get tired out so they don't squirm as much, and/or the parents want to make the most of their evening time together. Guess we'll see in September hahaha.
There's also been some language development. Alan still mostly hums and doesn't babble syllables. But "Ahm" or "mum" now means give me milk, "mama" means pick me up and get me out of here. So me, but different functions of me. XD; He also understands "patty cake" (bash mom's hand). I read in the Paris Review blog that Charles Darwin also recorded his son's first word as "mum," meaning food or give me food.
My fandom friend N tweeted this paper about boy-girl differences in parental time investments, studied in US/Canada/UK. It posits that boys' lag in language development and therefore school scores can be (at least partly) explained by parental time investment in activities like reading/singing/counting, as early on as 9 months, and the gap can be explained by opportunity cost -- parents may not be conscious of it, but given limited time, it's more rewarding to take a boy to the park than to read them a book, compared to a girl. This tracks with something I've been worried about: I assumed I'd sit and read my child storybooks all the time, but in actuality I have to force myself to do it a couple of times a week. Alan shows little signs of understanding and always tries to bash the book out of my hands. :P On the other hand, I sing songs to him a lot, and teach him the names of things directly.
Fascinatingly, part of the paper is about Quebec's subsidized daycare program, which appears to help boys more in this respect. Of course, in daycare the kids are read to in groups, so the time investment is the same. But the parents also read more to the boys once they're in daycare! The authors posit this is because the kids get tired out so they don't squirm as much, and/or the parents want to make the most of their evening time together. Guess we'll see in September hahaha.
