When Adam was born and my step dad and mom were here he remarked how interesting he found it that all the old songs come back up as soon as there is a baby in the house. Twinkle Twinkle. This Old Man. And so on.
I was thinking about that again the other day. How I do things with Adam that I have done with other babies in the past.
Some of them must be unique to my family, like showing Adam which Sesame Street character is on his nappy. We used to do that with my niece. And now I show him and sing him the song of that character. So C is for Cookie or Rubber Ducky. Or I just tell him how Elmo is my favourite!
Others I know are universal. For instance, when he grabs my face or hits my arm I say ‘gently!’ Like he really has any idea yet what that means.
And then he does something that I have no idea where he learned it, but is also universal. Like when he started blowing raspberries. And just yesterday? He started clucking his tongue. I didn’t teach him either of those things and neither did Simon. He just figured them out on his own.
Or there is such as thing as genetic memory…