Our baby has a pretty nice collection of toys, and looking them over today I would say 99% of them would be classed 'gender-neutral'. There's not much pink or blue unless its part of a rainbow set of stacking rings etc and there are only two vehicles - a pickup truck and a cement mixer (Bob the Builder toys picked up for 50p in a charity shop) and a few cutesy soft toys.
And yet - his first 'proper' word, reliably produced and firmly linked to the correct object whether in real life, photo, a drawing or even glimpsed on the TV show Top Gear as I surfed through a few channels, is 'car' - pronounced 'ka!' and the two vehicles are very much favourites. I saw him playing with one and made a few engine-like noises which he smiled at. My husband, informed of this, made a few more car noises. Now, when the baby plays with these items, he makes loud 'aaa, aaa, aaa' sounds, something he does with nothing else and which are pretty good copies of the engine noises we made. The childminder suddenly realised he could say 'car' when she held him in her arms near the street and he said it every time one went by. Apart from his colour books his most beloved book right now is a book about tractors - again, one of the very few 'boy' books he has. He ignores the cute soft toys. His Daddy is actually going to go and buy him a little car now because despite his huge interest he doesn't actually even have a toy car and we sort of feel sorry for him.
I don't get it. He's ten months old. He's had no particular encouragement in this direction so far. Is it just innate?!
And yet - his first 'proper' word, reliably produced and firmly linked to the correct object whether in real life, photo, a drawing or even glimpsed on the TV show Top Gear as I surfed through a few channels, is 'car' - pronounced 'ka!' and the two vehicles are very much favourites. I saw him playing with one and made a few engine-like noises which he smiled at. My husband, informed of this, made a few more car noises. Now, when the baby plays with these items, he makes loud 'aaa, aaa, aaa' sounds, something he does with nothing else and which are pretty good copies of the engine noises we made. The childminder suddenly realised he could say 'car' when she held him in her arms near the street and he said it every time one went by. Apart from his colour books his most beloved book right now is a book about tractors - again, one of the very few 'boy' books he has. He ignores the cute soft toys. His Daddy is actually going to go and buy him a little car now because despite his huge interest he doesn't actually even have a toy car and we sort of feel sorry for him.
I don't get it. He's ten months old. He's had no particular encouragement in this direction so far. Is it just innate?!
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