Pop-Pop’s point of view…

Being the grandfather just fills up my point of view, and the horizon gets pulled in pretty darn close, too! My beautiful granddaughter, our first, is here with me and my beloved, Barb, who is now Gram. This is our first journey of exploration as overnight babysitters in tandem—my son and his beloved, the Mom, are enjoying an interlude of adult conversation in another state.

…and when I say “pretty darn close,” I mean pretty DARN close because Gram won’t countenance my occasional unheeding sailor talk and so I try not to utter the other “D” word, although why we call it sailor talk instead of soldier talk or airman talk I do not know, most of the soldiers I knew could swear like drunken sailors, you betcha…

Anyway, I also try to concentrate on NOT doing baby talk, I never talked baby talk to my son, I intend to model the most correct version of the King’s English with this little girl because I am very well aware that she is already learning language even if she isn’t saying anything intelligible yet. She IS talking, I just don’t know what she’s saying, and I guess she’s in the same boat. So, we both do the best we can in the circumstances, and we smile a lot…and I think she likes to hear singing, so I’m doing some of that too, and it’s OK if I can remember only the chorus of “On The Banks of the Wabash, Far Away,” and she doesn’t mind if I sing it several times in a row.

I think it’s quite refreshing that babies don’t judge, they simply observe, learn, and imitate (or not), it would be a nicer world if more people acted like babies more often…except for the doo-doo diaper part, I confess there’s no thrill in it for me, but as the Pop-Pop, I’m prepared to do my duty when this young lady does the doodie, but, well, you know…

I’ve done some reading about language and the fully-wired facility that all human babies have at birth to learn language, so I’m fascinated to listen to her verbalization at the age of 8 months, she clearly is NOT making sounds at random, and so I am sympathetically responding to her, saying “I know you’re talking but I don’t know what you’re saying yet.” I know she’s working hard on understanding what we say to her. I can’t wait for my first opportunity to listen to my sweet granddaughter and say: “I understand!”

Stay tuned…and if you’re already a grandparent, you know how this story turns out!

September 2, 2011

In case you were wondering: Paul Dresser published “Wabash” in 1897, and his wildly popular ballad was one of the earliest pieces of music to be recorded…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Banks_of_the_Wabash,_Far_Away

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Movie review: Same Time, Next Year

all-American adultery, oh yeah…

click here

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In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 free verse and haiku poems,

and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)

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She’s trying to talk, just sayin’…