Adult readers ... you've lost me, I'm writing for children now! (You can read it too though.)

Merry Christmas & Happy Thanksgiving! This post is about a Christmas present I mentioned a few days ago and is about communicating with babies. We need to start young to have the best start in life.

My big holiday surprise keeps growing. I started with a 2025 wall calendar … and it turned out to be so cute and fun that I decided it needed activity pages and a cookbook/guide to go with it…

This is ready as a digital pdf calendar, the images are lovely and wallpaper size almost. (sync pdf file)

It’s always nice to have something to look forward to on the calendar!

Background… there has been an article title circulating meme style that says ~ “Don’t read to your child because that increases social inequity.” . . . lifting my jaw off of the floor. Um, parenting is 100% about providing your child with a good start in life, the best start in life you can possibly provide, …so they will become a functioning adult who can care for themselves well, …and maybe be able to care for the parents later on. Giving your child as many advantages as possible is the essence of parenting. Suggesting that we stifle some children to make all children match, makes no sense. It also makes no sense that drag queens are being encouraged to read to children at the same time that someone else is suggesting that parents not read to their children… <shock face emoji>.

Here is the story:

“In an interview with ABC Radio last week, philosopher and professor Adam Swift said that since “bedtime stories activities . . . do indeed foster and produce . . . [desired] familial relationship goods,” he wouldn’t want to ban them, but that parents who “engage in bedtime-stories activities” should definitely at least feel kinda bad about it sometimes:

“I don’t think parents reading their children bedtime stories should constantly have in their minds the way that they are unfairly disadvantaging other people’s children, but I think they should have that thought occasionally,” he said.

But Swift also added that some other things parents do to give their kids the best education possible — like sending them to “an elite private school” — “cannot be justified” in this way.

“Private schooling cannot be justified by appeal to these familial relationship goods,” he said.” (nationalreview.com)

Adam Swift thinks private schooling is socially unfair and therefore wrong to participate in but reading to children promotes family relationships and therefore shouldn’t be stopped - but think about how you are depriving other children…. maybe more of us should be reading at library story hours in addition to the drag queens.

. . . children need to be read to, at levels above their current reading level because it is helping to teach them words and language and sentence structure and it is relationship building. Pause and talk about the pictures, ask questions like “How many do you see?” or earlier “Can you point at the mouse?” My toddler could point out the mouse at age 18 months in a little toddler board-book and point at the various other pictures when asked also, but she wasn’t speaking those words yet.

My parents would make personalized family story books with photos and even a home made movie about a trip to Alaska, was made with subtitles made from magnet alphabet letters. Stifling your children because other children are stifled, makes the whole world stifled. (*a paraphrase of Mahatma Gandhi’s quote about the Bible’s law of retaliation, “an eye for an eye,” (Brave AI), and/or the Code of Hammurabi, (avalon.law.yale.edu).)

“The Code of Hammurabi, a Babylonian legal text, contains a famous principle known as “lex talionis” or “an eye for an eye.” This principle is applied in several laws that deal with physical harm or injury.

• Law 196: If a man destroys the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye.

• Law 197: If he breaks another man’s bone, they shall break his bone.

• Law 198: If he destroys the eye of a plebeian or breaks the bone of a plebeian, he shall pay one mina of silver.

• Law 199: If he destroys the eye of a man’s slave or breaks a bone of a man’s slave, he shall pay one-half his price.” (Brave AI summary)

Social inequity is really old. All races have held slaves or been held as slaves across time and by various cultures. Horrifically, US actions or funding has supported destruction of the Middle East which has led to an increase in open slave markets and human trafficking.

. . . long story short, or back to the point:

Now I have the wall calendar, and to go along with it, for homeschooling families, teachers, or anyone with an inner child to please, a coloring book draft and a poetry activity book, a scavenger hunt, hard and easy versions, and the beginning of the cookbook/activity guide. The Chuseok Holiday and persimmon post was written for the cookbook pdf.

Since the holiday season is here, and 2025 fast approaches, I have been moving fast and not sleeping a lot. The project has been fun and exciting for me. I love coloring books (that’s top-secret info).

The coloring book, the idea of adding a few more pages to a free template that was kind of lame, somehow turned into an Easy Reader Encyclopedia. My draft has some typical coloring book pages, but it also has more informative pages with illustrations to color. Where to stop though, with encyclopedia entries? I’m still working on that question. This morning’s pages:

The pages are 8 1/2 by 11 - standard, in case you want to download a copy to print out - there is extra white on this post because of a margin left in case of printing error.

I’m not quite ready to share the full coloring book document, but here is a link for the 2025 Special Day Calendar. For me to print a small number, about $20 looks like the cost to me. It is in a zip file with 26 pages. (sync)

»> You may not realize it, but you are all going to need a copy of this calendar. I certainly needed it, but did I know that at first? No.

Did you know that National Squirrel Appreciation Day is the day after Inauguration Day in 2025? …I didn’t know that either. Now I can plan accordingly - Squirrel celebration day!

• The easy scavenger hunt, (sync), and the harder one, (sync); Library book reading Log, (sync). I will save the sneak peek at the Poetry activity book for another post too.

Baby Babbling …When is a baby's first word?

“Dada” tends to be early - babbling does count, moms and dads!

Baby’s first word occurs sometime long after they already had started to communicate. Pay attention to the newborn’s body language and eye contact and smile back!

Infants love and need to interact with other people in order to learn how to communicate. They learn body language and eye contact before they learn words. Babies who are born deaf and have caregivers who know sign language learn to babble in sign language. Their hands start making random movements that include some recognizable elements of sign language. Eventually they are forming longer phrases and words with sign language.

As the baby gets older and is babbling verbally or with sign language the conversation continues when they are encouraged by a smiling face and verbal or signed response. Infants who receive very little interaction or more confusing interaction with occasional smiling responses and occasional angry or frightening responses may stop trying to communicate and may not learn verbal skills as soon or as well as a baby who receives frequent friendly interaction. Is baby saying goo goo, gah gah? Sing along with them and you may be surprised at the burbling response. Now you’re singing a duet!

“Oh, what fun it is to technovate… this holiday!” - an adorable father and daughter duet for Christmas time. Jingle Bells, (Youtube short) and more magical Christmas technovations from the pair, another clip. (Youtube short)

Then before you know it… you’re really taking off on a magical singing carpet ride!

Babies with or without verbal skills first interact with eye contact.

In normal conversation we typically look directly at each other part of the time and glance away intermittently and then look back again. We are seeing emotional responses to the conversation and internally may adjust responses based on what we observe. Direct eye contact for longer periods of time is more confrontational, more aggressive - those are fighting eyes. Predator or prey our instincts have learned that a stare may be a threat. Playing games like peek-a-boo with an infant is an early way to practice making eye contact intermittently in a fun and non-threatening way.

Babies learn to communicate with body language before they begin to babble. Eye contact and loving attention from their caregiver as a newborn teaches the infant that they can trust that their cries and needs for food and cleanliness and warmth will be met as well as their need for touch and smiling faces.

Babies are familiar with the sound of their mother's heartbeat and may be familiar with music and language in their environment from an early age. They learn to recognize words and patterns of language long before the ability to speak. Babbling is their way of saying hello and anything else they might be thinking - say hello back or sing along with the babbling. Natural pauses to listen and respond whether with early eye contact and then looking away to later babbling by baby and a response from caregiver is early conversation.

Infants who do not have caregivers who respond to the early efforts at communication can leave a baby under-stimulated and they may stop trying. Orphans in overcrowded facilities with little interaction have been found to develop an autism like condition which may be reversed if they receive more nurturing care early enough in life.

"If a baby does not babble, coo or gesture by 12 months, say single words by 16 months or two-word phrases by 24 months, or if there is a loss of language or social skills at any point, he or she should be evaluated by a doctor." - Katherine M. Johnson

• For more information see: "Putting together the pieces: New Orleans doctors and therapists make autism navigable #spd" learningsuccessblog.com.

• Or "Was My Child’s Autism Misdiagnosed?", by Katherine G Hobbs, AutismParentingMagazine.com.

Playing peek-a-boo - think of it as going to college for infants.

Games like peek-a-boo also teach interaction and that conversation has pauses. It can be natural to speak to infants in a slightly higher pitched voice however they learn normal speech patterns by listening to normal conversation - baby talk is not going to teach language as well as just chatting about what you are doing and labeling things out loud.

"Let's get ready for a walk. Putting on baby's coat, and shoes, now for the mittens and hat. Now it's my turn, putting on my coat, and shoes, and my mittens and hat! Now we're ready for a walk!. Won't that be fun?"

Games like “Peek-a-boo, I see you,” teach important communication skills. Children respond to smiles and being spoken to in normal language. Singing along with “Baba, googoo, dada,” also teaches the joy of communication but they learn language by hearing normal conversation.

Games like “Peek-a-boo, I see you,” teach important communication skills. Children respond to smiles and being spoken to in normal language. Singing along with “Bah bah, goo goo, dah dah,” also teaches the joy of communication but they learn language by hearing normal conversation.

Babbling and American Sign Language Resources

• Whether a baby is born verbal or deaf, both babies can benefit from learning sign language at an early age. See: "Baby Sign Language - Hearing Babies Babble and Deaf Babbling," babies-and-sign-language.com.

• Learning second and third languages of any type can be easier for toddlers than for adults or older children. Simply speak to children in normal language and they will gradually be learning that language . . . but if you speak to them in a contrived “baby talk” then they will be learning that… so… a normal voice is best for talking to infants and toddlers. See: "The Best Age for Kids to Learn a Second Language," Motherly.

• The symbol for heart in American Sign Language can be signed in a few ways, tapping the chest in the area of the heart or using the index fingers to draw a heart shape are two ways. American Sign Language (ASL): "heart," lifeprint.

• An example of American Sign Language showing the fluid emotional story telling aspect of the language is available in a song video with a sign language interpretation of Mariah Carey's song "All I Want for Christmas Is You," (via Chrissy @life_laughter_). Can we “see” music? The answer seems to be yes, really cool, worth viewing.

• This post is an edited combination of two posts on my peace-is-happy.org forum topic Peace is a Happy Baby.

Disclaimer: This information is being shared for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health care guidance.