Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Thinking out loud

Shannon told me our baby might be able to hear sounds outside the womb now. This news inspired me to pull out some of my classical music CDs and play them as loud as I could get away with the last several evenings. I've heard of the "Mozart effect", but frankly I'm no great lover of Mozart so why not the "Chopin effect" or "Beethoven effect"? I did play a little chamber music from Herr Mozart last night, but mostly I've been spinning the Early Romantics...particularly Chopin and Schumann. I wonder, is there some kind of emotional/personality formation taking place that could be impacted by my choice of music? If synapses begin to fire while listening to Chopin, does that mean he'll be a frail melancholy artiste type? Could listening to Schumann turn him into a visionary madman? Playing Wagner could be very risky. I've also started reading aloud to Shannon's belly. I read chapter one of 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' and some passages from Isaiah. We plan to continue this throughout. BTW Isaiah (meaning "salvation of the Lord" or "the Lord saves") is one of my favored boy names. Shannon isn't so keen on it though. We'll see...

3 comments:

Reva said...

Stephen and Shannon,

I'm sure you don't know me but I am on the HS blog list - I just read your blog on the baby - when we were pregnant with our first - I'd heard that babies can hear also. I said the ABC's to her every single day - and read to her while inutero. After she was born I put the alphabet on our sliding glass door and with her in my arms I pointed to and said each letter every day - twice. I continued to read to her every day. She said her first word,bird, (not our choice !!) at 5 months, walked at 8 months, was speaking in full, intelligble sentences (we could carry on a decent conversation with her) at 12 months and she KNEW the alphabet by the time she was 18 months old. She was reading by three. KEEP UP THE EDUCATION!!! :)

Reva Mirti

redeyespy said...

Be wary of the Wagner. You child may end up with the desire to conquer Poland!

Stephen Ley said...

Thanks, Reva, for the inspiration and encouragement!

Good point, redeyespy!