kim through
   the looking glass

Gwen, I swear, learns new words every day. Here’s some new ones:

truck (guk), up, down, Mummy, bus, pumpkin, drill, hammer (hammo), level, screw, vacuum (da-doo … promptly followed by a sucking noise), baby, banana (baba), toast, cracker, downstairs, upstairs, nose, hands, toes, Bowie (Yep, David Bowie. Don’t ask.), space, barrel, basket, coat, shoes, teeth (teese), bagel, cheese, button(s), ball, ouch/owie/ow, light, Uncle (ukka), hot, this, that, pee, diaper, paper, blueberry, duckies (referring to her Duck Crackers), arm, bottle (as in water bottle), juice, bum

Oh, and our favourites - “no” and “mine” - which she yells all. day. long.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten some words. But gosh darnit, when she talks it’s the cutest thing ever.

Wow. Can I say wow?

The Continuum Concept, by Jean Liedloff, is in my opinion, largely a social commentary. The writer spent a great deal of time living with and observing Native South Americans in their tribal communities and contrasts their methods of child-raising to our very different North American methods.

Basically, Liedloff postulates that these tribal humans live much closer to the natural human state (the ‘continuum’) than we “civilized” humans - a postulation with which I’m sure none of us would disagree. However, she also asserts that as such, their children (and adults!) are happier, more well adjusted, and enjoy a higher quality of life than do their Western counterparts. She stresses that we have come to rely so much on our intellect and so little on our inborn instincts that we miss out on much of the truly human experience. Read the rest of this entry »