My Sister, Rachel and her husband, Mark enjoying BBQ last June when they were only beginning the adoption process. At This time Katie wasn't even born. She's six months old now and coming "home" to Arlington, Texas on Thursday morning. They recieve some weird descriptions from the Social Worker about their "child to be." Katie was described as: "shy, with a quick temper, liking quiet, and not liking strangers."
She's six months old and her description sounds like a personal ad, "Enjoys fine wines, cooking gourmet meals and arranging flowers..." How can anyone read that much detail into a six-month old babies' behaviour? I say things like that about my cat but I realize that the appraisal of Stinky's behaviour I concoct is my concoction and means nothing to cat behaviour.
Six-month-old children are as foreign to us a pets when it comes to reading moods and complicated emotions. They are more a projection of the love, apprehension, tenseness, relaxation of the caregivers. If you're nervous as you hold her she will process that nervousness and be fussier or mad crying.
Talk to her none-stop or sing when you run out of conversation. Read her the newspaper, anything. In your arms or riding in a back pack, her first lessons in changeing Ethnic Language Groups is feeling sounds vibrate in your chest and hearing the "r" sound and others that are not a part of Korean language sounds, etc... The slow pace of English compared to the speed of Korean. She'll take to you more quickly AND you need to rewire her tiny brain to learn the sounds of AMERICAN SPEECH as opposed to ASIAN SPEECH.
For the first year of a baby's life they grow accustomed to the base sounds of the language they are most exposed to. She needs a crash course in TEXAN (poor girl, LOLA will be a non-stop singing, talking machine...so will I). So talk to her. Her little brain is more "plastic" now that it will ever be again. If you had a fluent Korean speaker, your whole houshold could become bi-lingual.
I will talk to her nonstop and sing 80's Music to her when I arrive May 7-14 so I won't be a "stranger" for long. So exciting!
1 comment:
Interesting insight to babies,you sound like you knew more than me when I had my 2nd!Definitely holding cuddling SOFT singing and lots of sweet gibber gabber baby talk. I like the pic of your siss and hub,the calm before the storm,oh how I have been there!
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