Baby Talk – I Hated It, Now I Love It…But Not For The Reasons You Might Think…

It’s been a little while since we last checked in with a new post!  Turns out this raising a baby business and trying to maintain some semblance of a normal life takes up a lot of time!!

Before I jump into the topic du jour, Abigail is doing great!  If you can believe it, she’s already about 16 weeks old and she’s BIG – over 15 pounds!  She’s smiling, laughing and is already starting to figure out cause and effect – if I cry, someone will come to get me and then we can play!

Now on to today’s post…

Before having a child there were many things about babies that annoyed me or at the very least I didn’t really understand.  Tops on my list of annoyances was the baby talk voice.  You know, when an otherwise mature and professional adult comes into contact with a baby and instinctively starts talking in a high-pitched, sing-song voice, often making up their own words and sounds to boot.  I don’t know why but it’s always annoyed me.  Now the alternative would be to talk to your baby like you would if you were hanging out with one of your buddies but that seems equally ridiculous.  So I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will most likely end up talking to Abigail in that ridiculous sing-song voice.  But, it turns out talking like a baby has some benefits I didn’t realize…

On a recent Saturday morning (after a particularly tiring night with Abigail) Cynthia was sitting and reading stories to Abigail while I was zoning out on the computer.  She was reading one of Abigail’s favorite books – Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?  I’m not really paying too much attention until I think I hear this (in baby talk voice of course):

Brown bear, brown bear what do you see?
I see Daddy sitting at the computer ignoring me.

What?  Did I hear that correctly?  I continue surfing the web until I DEFINITELY hear this:

Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?
I see Daddy pretending to be working but I know he’s just doing that so he can avoid playing with me and make mommy do all the work.

And then it hit me – you can pretty much say whatever you want as long as you say it in a baby talk voice.  I thought I’d give it a try in a few circumstances…

I recently brought Abigail to work and introduced her to some people…

Abigail, this is Jake.  Say hi to Jake!  You know what Jake really likes?  He really likes talking loudly in his cube so everyone can hear.  I bet if you came to visit me more often he wouldn’t talk so loud.

I had been getting a little tired of this old ratty shirt Cynthia has taken a liking to but didn’t know how to bring it up…

Wow, Abigail that’s a very nice outfit you have on today!  Daddy really likes it when you wear new clothes, so pretty!  You know, Daddy’s been a bit confused what day of the week it is because Mommy likes to wear the same shirt everyday!  Good thing you change your clothes!

You see?  You can get away with anything when you use that voice because not only does it sound nice and sweet, no one really wants to argue in front of the baby!