Point/Counterpoint

While gearing up for Abbie’s birth about a year ago, we visited a few “baby fairs.” These resemble conventions where expectant parents can visit booths operated by organizations just dying to give you free advice about raising a child, like a baby-centric version of the Varied Industries building at the Iowa State Fair but with fewer fried foods. The groups running these booths range from non-profit organizations who are genuinely concerned about your family’s welfare, to for-profit companies who are genuinely concerned about making money from your concerns. These groups hand out lots of free stuff, such as logo-festooned pencils that don’t write because the lead is off-center, and logo-festooned pens that don’t write because they’re filled with some substance that’s thicker and cheaper than ink, like dehydrated mud. The most useful thing I found is a development wheel from Iowa Early ACCESS, with ACCESS, of course, being an acronym standing for Always Choose Cameras for Extremely Stable Service. Just turn the wheel to your child’s age, and it will give you age-appropriate suggestions for safety and development, along with milestones meant to send you into a hyperventilating hysteria if your child fails to reach them in time. The wheel has five years worth of goals to fret over.

So far, the milestones have been pretty simple, like “smiles” or “spends less than half the day screaming,” and Abbie has hit every one in time (though she did fail to meet the latter goal today {sigh}). Nearing five weeks to go, though, Abbie needs to buckle down and work hard to reach some of her 12-month milestones, specifically milestones related to communication. One goal, “say a few meaningful words” is doable. She can say a few words right now as long as you count “a,” “ah,” and “uh” as words. All it takes is one magical moment for her to connect sound with objects and make a word, and then it’s off to the enchanting world of wondering if I’ll ever have a minute of peace and quiet again.

Another goal, “point to a few objects when asked to find” will be more difficult. Abbie doesn’t point, possibly because I never point. Only recently did I consider that maybe pointing isn’t instinctual in infants, like sucking is, or peeing as soon as the diaper comes off. So now I’m playing catch-up and pointing at everything. She gets the idea while reading and will randomly point at things on the page, though she may just be searching for a flap to lift. She has yet to point at anything with a third-dimension, though. I’ll just keep working at it, pointing and speaking, and hopefully Abbie will get the point (ha!) before the neighbor kids start calling me Crazy Pointing Guy.