As a stay-at-home dad, I was very mindful of talking to my baby son. I'd talk to him all day.
In the mornings, I'm not the most talkative sort until my first gulp of coffee, so my chat may have sounded a little like this: "We're soon going to eat toast because there are slices of bread in the toaster. Here's some yogurt and, mmm, banana. And, look, daddy's coffee is ready! Yay! Be careful: it's very very hot!"
Yay, coffee!
If we were out for a walk, I'd point out buses and cars. And dogs and houses. I'd also point out beautiful purple carpets of freshly fallen jacaranda blossoms. And because vervet monkeys -- with their black faces and grey fur -- were rampant in our neighbourhood in South Africa, I'd point them out, too. "Oh, look! There's a mommy monkey and her babies. Can you see them high in the trees? And look there's a daddy monkey."
Now, with my son in his toddler phase, many of his new skills amaze and charm this first-time dad.
We were at the grocery store yesterday picking up some essentials. He was in the stroller, and from his vantage point he'd point to boxes stacked on the top shelf "up high". And he'd point to "red apples".
Now it wasn't that he wanted these things. He was simply pointing them out. And using language.
Babies and toddlers absorb more than one would imagine. I'm delighted to see the process of his acquiring and using language, the beginnings of a life-long conversation we'll have.
