Threenagers!

I remember when my eldest, Daisy, was just a tiny baby. I would encourage her to speak by pointing everything out as we went past it. I would describe it in intricate detail, just so she would become gradually familiar with language. It was important in those baby bibles to have children talking from a certain age, and I was desperate to tick the talking box. Nothing was too boring to be described. If we were choosing a lettuce at the supermarket, I would talk her through the process of selecting the best one, and prompt her to help me discard the leaves that had gone limp and were no good.

No word was off limits, big words, little words, weird words, and even, unfortunately swear words were all open slather.

Today I was just pondering the irony of how we are begging them to talk for so long, encouraging to communicate for hours on end - but once they finally do, sometimes we would do anything for just one moment of pure, clean, uninterrupted silence.



One such incident occurred recently where I needed to bath the baby, and Daisy needed to have some dinner. She is no longer a babbling baby, but a fully fledged three-nager. I asked her several times if she wanted to bath the baby with me, or go and start on her dinner by herself. I was ignored several times. Finally, I raised my voice ever so slightly, and asked the question again.

As she swung her hand on her hip and rolled her eyes in my direction, she replied
"Woahhh Mum! Why are you being so rude???"

I was speechless. Without speech. The delivery. The attitude. The tone.
I had created a monster.

My daughter speaks very well, so much so that many people assume she is older than she is. While I like to think my 'early intervention' played a part in that, I have been decidedly less chatty with my infant son.
We chat, we goo and we gaa until the cows come home, but so far as developing his speech - I think I'm gonna let nature do its part.

Have you got a chatterbox? What are your secrets for getting some peace and quiet?

xxx Tara xxx