Baby talk
We read a good tip in the babycentre.co.uk newsletter this week:
"Cooing is your baby's way of showing she's happy. This pre-speech exercise lets her play with sound just as she plays with her fingers and toes. You can show that you've heard her by cooing or talking in response; see if you can have an extended conversation. "Levi has recently started making gurgles and coos, so we tried having a conversation with him last night and it was a great success. He was happily kicking around under his jungle gym, punching and grabbing at the dangling toys, trying to pull them into his mouth. We were sat down on either side of him, playing with him and recording with the camcorder. When he made a sound, I smiled at him and made a short similar sound back at him. He picked up on it instantly, locked his gaze on my face and replied with another sound. I kept up my side of the conversation, and we had a little chat between ourselves for a little while - lovely. Skye joined in from behind the camcorder, and soon the whole family were telling stories to each other. Levi seemed to enjoy joining in the conversation, and once he'd finished telling us his side of the story, he got straight back into punching and kicking those dangling toys with a renewed vigour.
He's at a really sweet age right now, just under 3 months. He smiles and coos, he can grip on to things and wave them about, he loves having nursery rhymes sung to him, and he's just on the verge of being able to roll himself over. He's a strong little man, and we're helping him work on his physique with regular sit-ups to the tune of "row row row your boat" - soon he'll be looking as toned as his old man :)