Child brain development

Hello people,

The past few days have been a little difficult at home for Kendra because Easton and Layla are a little agitated from the pediatrician's shots. I came home from work to find Kendra hanging on by her last nerve. My day was a little stressful just from normal demands of keeping my boring work life going. However, Kendra's day was much more difficult so I was happy to step in and spend time with the babies for the normal 5-7 double jeopardy (where the scores can really change).

We woke up this morning to find Easton yakked in his bed so blueberry muffin was everywhere. Seems like he worked himself into a tantrum because we were a little slower than normal getting them out of bed and pointed towards the crackers. That's a rough way to start the day, right? It got better from there, but Kendra just had one of those days.

I chased the twins around the kitchen island after giving them a bath. I think they FINALLY figured out it is also fun for them to chase each other around and play peek-a-boo. At first I was the chaser and would jump out as they came around the corner. This is where I was saying, "where is daddy?"


Layla shrieks with laughter and loves to be caught off guard as I jump out. Also you'll notice she has the toy stethoscope around her neck where she was listening to our hearts. After our last fiasco at the Pediatricians we want to introduce the idea of doctor's tools and shots at home and hopefully they won't freak out next time we're there.


In this next picture you see Easton's wonderful smile, but what you DON'T see is Layla right behind him, chasing Easton as they ran through the house. I started saying, "Where is Easton?"


She finally caught him in the front room... and tackled him.


I wasn't sure whether to cheer for her or feel sorry for him? Both of them took it as just good play-time fun. We will hopefully see much more of them playing tag and peek-a-boo together. In other amazing news... My friend Judson gave us some of their unused toys (their two kids are slightly older than ours) and one of the toys is a huge rocking horse. The base is made of strong plastic. There are strong rubber links connecting the horse to the base. It is very bouncy and wobbly by design and the twins love rocking on it. Layla decided to stand up on the saddle! We are amazed at her strength to get up in that position and balance all by herself for several seconds.


Kendra put her hand out just to keep her standing up so I could take a picture. Every day brings something new where we are impressed with how well the twins are growing mentally and physically.

I attended a workshop sponsored by my work where the focus was brain development of children. Here are some cool things I learned from "the experts":

1. Children learn new languages the best between 0-6 years old. By 10 it becomes exponentially more difficult to learn a new language. Time to hit the Rosetta Stone software over the next couple of months and pump up the Spanish conversations around here.

2. Playing music is good, but having continuous background music is bad. Children can't "tune it out" like adults can and they try to focus on everything happening around them at once. this causes over-stimulation. This point is the most important change I will make in our house. My thought previously was to have music on as much as possible to stimulate the music part of their brains, but that is not good. Instead, I'll plan specific music times where we listen and dance and sing along with songs they can understand.

3. No TV for any child under 2 years old. They said that children who watched baby Einstein were less developed mentally than those who had no TV. (I'm still trying to reconcile this information with the Your Baby Can Read methodology).

4. IQ of children is more highly correlated with how many words they heard each day than any other aspect of environment. For example, Kendra talks all day all the time and I like the fact that she does. She'll talk through everything they are doing, "put on your right sock, now we're putting on your left sock, and now let's get your pink shoes..."

5. Flash cards are useless. Their point is that a child gets more from touching an actual apple than looking at a picture of one, which makes sense.

6. The density of a childs brain peaks at 6 years old and then it "prunes" out the unused or non-re-enforced portions to make room for more important connections.

I'm not saying I agree with everything that was said, I'm just relaying with the experts point out as important aspects of developing a child's brain. What I took from the session was confirmation of Kendra's methodology and the way we are doing things at the 4 Webb's house.

Too bad they didn't address how to stop children from biting or I would have provided my own expertise along with a shameless advertisement for Tabasco sauce!