Reading Wars - Victory is OURS!

I think it is safe to say Reading Wars has been won :) Nicholas has become so attached to story time that trying to put him to bed for a nap or for the night without a book first is a perilous task indeed. Not only that but the whole point of reading wars was to promote verbal development. I have to say it might just be working. We have noticed a change in the way Nicholas babbles. It's very interesting actually. It isn't so much that he sounds more conversational, though he often does, but more that his babbling is reminiscent of the cadence of a book that rhymes or a poem. He has several books that where the story line rhymes and the particular verbal cadence that one has when reading such a book is now appearing in Nicholas' various forms of babbling. He is also becoming more apt to babble back and forth with you. For instance I pointed out a dog in a book the other day and he looked back over his shoulder at me and made a sound that sounded a lot like dog. I'm not running to the rooftop to shout to the world that his first word was dog but I will admit that it was pretty close. Almost as exciting as that is the fact that we have a new new trick that developed over the past week. We have a stash of books in the living room some of which I've intentionally put there and some he has swiped from his bedroom. Lately he's been going and grabbing books and running to me with them. If I take the book from him he will often try to climb up on the couch and sit next to me while we read the book. Sometimes he just stands there while we look at it together. He LOVE LOVE LOVES a baby faces book about learning to eat. We got it from the doctor when he was 6 months old. I often touch various points on his face while reading the book as it talks about where food ends up when you're just learning to eat. Now he gets a HUGE grin on his face when we get to the page where a little girl has food on her nose and usually the touching of his nose earns me a giggle. Another favorite book is The Going To Bed Book. We read it every single night before bed, it's the last book we read before turning out the light and singing out bedtime song. Since we read it so much I have notice a lot of his babbling most closely resembles the rhyming cadence of this particular book. We're also big fans of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, God Made Puppies (which was actually a book of MINE when I was little), and The Very Busy Spider. A new Baby Einstein book about colors is one of the ones he brings to me most often while we are playing in the living room. It is so adorable when he does that and to watch him focus on the photos on the pages is super duper adorable. We have also noticed that we're hearing momma and dadda more and more often in amongst his babbling. Every once in a while he seems to be saying it TO one of us rather than just babbling it. We don't always get a clear mama or dada but rather ma ma ma and da da da. We're still signing as well even though many many people believe that signing actually delays speak. I don't care. I'd rather give him the tools to communicate however he chooses than try and force him to talk right this second. Our most often used sign is "eat", followed closely by "all done". Those are pretty much the only two he uses but he's begun pointing a lot. I think we might be getting closer to more understandable communication. Hoping we'll have real words by the time we go back to the doctor in two months. If not, I will be able to say with absolute certainty that it isn't from lack of reading or talking with him. I think since he's been such a good boy this week he deserves to go to the book store and pick out a couple new book. Ahhh, who am I kidding, I missed the Ragababe opening today and just want to feel like I bought him SOMETHING since he isn't going to be getting a new diaper lol. Meh, who cares, I'm sure he'll enjoy new books and frankly so will I. If I had to read the Where's My Puppy? one more time I might go insane. We definitely need new material!!