AdventureDad

Mondays suck.  I hate Mondays.  But I'm feeling pretty good today since we had a great weekend.  Nothing special happened but things are simply going very well across the board.  I don't know what the hell has happened to Annika but she's sleeping like a princess.  Since her rebirth she's been sleeping from 7-8 pm until 3-4 am before feeding and falling back asleep again.  And we though that was good.  But for the past week she's sleeping through the night.  7-8 pm until 6 am, and then sleeping longer again.  I hate stupid parents that brag about sleeping but since she was almost impossible to comfort during the first two months, this feels like a nice payback.  Mainly for the wife who's the one getting up for every feeding and handling most of the crying.. 

 

Daniel is doing great and has once again breezed through a month of school sickness with nothing more than coughing and a runny nose.   He's talking so much nowadays, you can barely tell we're teaching him three languages at once.  He's even starting to pick up more English which means we have to be careful with our secrets.  I just read an article which points out just how important it is for dad's to  be involved in communication with their kids.  "Daddy Talk Boosts Toddler's Vocabulary" reports that the number of words a father uses with his 2-year old will show benefits later on in the vocabulary.

I never read too much into surveys or statistics but these results have always been obvious to me.  Of course a young child benefits from his father spending time and talking to his child.  I wouldn't say the reason is gender, a more important reason would be diversity.  Hearing someone else speak to you, using different words, other accent, and other expressions  must be great in the long run.  I would imagine seeing the same results if a child had two mothers or two fathers.

Something that  makes me happy is how much Daniel is learning in school.  And I must also emphasize that the way schools over here teach is by playing. They are having fun and learning at the same time.  Kids should remain kids and they will pick up all necessary skills on time.  When children start first grade more focus is put on slowly building study habits.  All done in order to keep the kids interested and curious in learning new things.  That's a philosophy I really like.  I hate parents who's trying to shove knowledge down their toddlers throat.   I can't see how that will end up with the kid curious about school and wanting to study later on in life.