Shylah is 6 months old and suddenly all hands. She is currently dubbed Shylah “the hands” Pitt.  It’s totally amazing.  Something clicked and as soon as you set her down near any surface the hands start going.  Grabbing, swatting, slapping, pulling, fanning out over any and all surfaces wiping them clean.  It’s like she’s been possessed by a crazed spider monkey (not that I’ve ever seen one, but if I had to guess what one would look like it would totally be Shylah at 6 months). It reminds me of a post by Crappy Mom about the zone on the table in which the server always places the hot basket of fries. We have a firm, yet ever evolving, understanding of Shylah’s range and it is amazingly farther than we expected a pre-ambulatory human to have.

Sometimes she’s not even looking in the same direction as her hands pull papers out of my stand up files or she lifts the cast iron pan off the stove.  It’s completely out of her control, or so we think.  She’s peacefully dozing off to sleep when lefty sneaks up pulls the pacifier out of her mouth and chucks it over the side of her co-sleeper.  Her eyes pop open and she has that “mom, what happened?” look on her face.

She’s a slapper when she’s tired.  We’ll be laying in bed and her hand will get going, smack, smack, smack just a little beyond the force needed to express affection.  I’d be annoyed if it wasn’t so funny!  She officially uses her hands to feel my chin and Nathan’s to decipher who’s holding her when she’s tired.  Facial hair?  Not the mom!

Shylah is figuring out the world around her and we’re enjoying her explorations, even if it means getting slapped around a bit.

As an educator, an English major, and a (former) language arts teacher I’m undoubtedly biased in my assumptions regarding the benefits of reading. The written word is not just for technical manuals, information on the internet (and everywhere), and textbooks. It is the very lifeblood of history and ideas and even love. So yeah, I’m biased.

It is no surprise then that I believe in introducing Shylah to the sublimity of literacy early. I mean, I wouldn’t go all gangbusters like the “Your Baby Can Read” proponents. No, my baby can’t read. Not yet. And that is perfectly okay. However, she can get exposed to concepts of print and start making connections between words and pictures.  It is also a great way to spend time together.  Aprille is an awesome storybook reader (she WAS an ECE teacher when I met her so I knew she had some skills).

Shylah already interacts with the text.

I’m blown away by how much Shylah gets into the book reading. Granted, we don’t have a TV, but Aprille and I are pretty entertaining. I sing and dance for Shylah on a very consistent basis, and I can’t hold her attention the same way a book does. She has pretty much been into reading since we started flipping pages for her at three or four weeks old. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t really think Shylah is exceptional in this area. I think it is natural for children to like and be interested in “natural” literacy activities like reading books and identifying letters, numbers, colors, etc. when they are developmentally ready.

I know my parents read to me a lot. I remember it. We have many pictures documenting it. I saw my parents reading all the time. We had books everywhere and reading was considered a good use of a weekend day or any evening if other work was finished. I want to pass on the reading ethic I grew up with and so far that is happening, but Aprille is the one really making it happen.

Shylah's hair is so plentiful, she has trouble keeping her head upright.

All right. Let’s just get it out in the open. No need to ignore the elephant in the room. Yes, she has a lot of hair.  It’s beautiful and we love it.  Don’t tell us it is all going to fall out.  We don’t care if it does, but it won’t.  Don’t hate her because she has beautiful hair.  She was born that way.

It is almost funny now when we think back on those first few days she was with us and we were struggling to come up with a name.  Wasn’t it obvious that she was Rapunzel incarnate?  Harriet might have worked too, but it was not quite as compatible with our last name.