One of the things we talk a lot about in Montessori is that babies’ receptive language (i.e., what they understand) is greater than what they can produce for a long time. For that reason, we spend a lot of time talking to babies. Kylie wrote a great post about how to talk to babies, which includes things like using real words (such as “pacificer” instead of “binky” or “toilet” instead of “potty”). We also spend a lot of time describing what we’re doing (e.g., “Now I’m washing your left foot.”). Further, we try to imitate the noises that Henry makes. We’ll continue that practice until he really starts trying

Dearest Henry,

This month was the first time when I sat back and thought, “The time is going too quickly! Please slow down!”

In three short months you are going to be a year old. You are growing so much every day. It’s clear that you understand more and more of what we say and do. If your dad blows raspberries on my stomach and then tells you to do it, you will crawl over, lift my shirt, and blow raspberries to make me laugh. You like to chase and be chased.

You are also good at communicating that you don’t want to stop eating grapes and cheese in order

Two of my favorite bloggers recently wrote reflections about the difficult intersection between our personal lives as mothers and our professional lives. Amy of Progressive Pioneer wrote a whole essay about how she decided to temporarily give up blogging. She explained:

This is what it came down to, the choice between the illusion of a life lived and the real, flesh and bones, eye to eye, heart to heart life lived. Pixels versus people. The gap between the life represented on screen, and the day-to-day happenings in our home had grown to an unacceptable level. I wondered when I had crossed over that murky, gray line into the territory of