This is a little niche, but I have a music background, and do solfège (ie “do re mi” etc) exercises with my toddler to keep him relatively chill during diaper changes. He’s recently started mimicking them (and many other things) but doesn’t quite get that they’re syllables unto themselves, so we got this exchange:
Me: “do” Him: “do” Me: “re” Him: “re” Me: “mi” Him: “you!”
That first month is a real challenge, so congrats on making it this far.
I had a similar sort of feeling, that first few months (what I’ve seen called “the fourth trimester” and what I personally refer to as “the phase where they’re basically a potato”) is a bit repetitive and they don’t really have the capacity to engage. But it’s well worth the wait; months 4-12 are really exciting and filled with firsts.
We’re at about 24 months and it’s simultaneously been the most fun and most challenging. Little guy is really taking to the verbal skills, and he’s starting to repeat full sentences (including daddy’s traffic-inspired “look at this fucking guy”) and express complex thoughts and desires. Many of those desires involve potential grievous injury, hence the difficult part, but it’s overall a lot of a fun.