John Imitating Mama

John's Current Reading: Farm Animals

After John was so clearly trying to imitate my "kitty" with his "tss-tss" (as he's been doing for a couple of months, actually), I did an experiment today as we were reading. John greatly enjoys "Farm Animals," which consists of simple photographs of farm animals with simple labels, such as "Sheep." I've already had to reinforce the binding with packing tape. I "read" the book by narrating: "Oh! A sheep! (here I sometimes laugh, then John laughs) The sheep says baaa-aaa-aaa." All the animals make their various noises except for the rabbit and turtle "who are very quiet."

Today I made the animal sounds more simple and slow, so the sheep, instead of saying "baaa-aaa-aaa" says "ba." John began imitating me with the great deliberation and seriousness a 10-month-old can muster! I wondered if I was projecting too much into it, as a mother can, so a few hours later I asked Chris to watch us as I did the experiment again. He agreed with me wholeheartedly that John is imitating me as best as his vocal cords can manage!

Our conversations went like this:

K: "The sheep says . . ."
John would switch from looking at the page to staring at me.
K: ". . . ba! (pause) Ba!"
J: "Ba."
K: "Ba!"
J: "Ba."

John was also able to imitate the cow's moo ("boo"), the horse's neigh ("may" or "bay", although he does have the capability to say "nay"), and the goat's "ma" ("ma").

I can hardly believe that a baby so young can already be imitating sounds and attaching word labels to things. I'm not saying that John in particularly is extra smart, but that babies in general are so smart!

Katherine's Current Reading: Designed to Fail: Catholic Education in America by Steven Kellmeyer and Christ in the Home by Raoul Plus