Developmental Interview

Developmental Interview Blog Response
9/15/14

I contacted my mom earlier today to ask her some of the questions that were posted above. I asked her questions starting from before birth, up until things that have just recently happened that have had an impact on development. Starting from the beginning, my mother took prenatal vitamins and folic acid before she even became pregnant and into the pregnancy. I was born two weeks early, but in today’s world that is a completely healthy baby. As I began to develop I walked at a year, and I talked at an earlier age than most. By the age of 2 I could talk in sentence formation. I was a social and very animated baby. As I got older, my mom said that I did really well with others and I started wee school when I was only 3 years old. When 2nd grade rolled around I was put into a program for kids who struggled with reading and math, and within 6 months I was one of the top readers of my class. I actually developed late separation anxiety, which happened when I was about 7. My mom said I cried everyday before going to school. Since then, I have gone through many of the same adolescents issues that everyone has gone through. Other things that I believe have impacted my development were my sisters both going to college when I was only 13, and my parents getting divorced when I was 16.

From talking to my mom, I learned a lot about how I was as a child and now with my better understanding of development I can see what were things that developed normally, some things that maybe developed slowly, or more quickly. My experience with this interview was a good one because it was really interesting for me to see how my life followed along these developmental patterns without me even knowing it. I also enjoyed giving the interview because it really made me have to study the chapter more in depth to come up with questions for my mom that would point me in the right direction. It’s important to know that just because an experience may seem insignificant, it can really affect how you develop as a human being. Such as my mom taking prenatal vitamins and folic acid before I was even conceived. Previously her and my dad had a baby before that miscarried. The folic acid and the prenatal vitamins could have been what caused me to germinate and become a healthy baby.

Some of the things that matched up between my life and what happened in the chapter has a lot to do with when I was a child and also in the prenatal stage. As talked about in the last chapter, children grow and develop through sensory information. My mother told me that I was a very early talker. This was most likely because I had two older sisters who talked all the time; my family is very extrovert and social. So being around people who talked a lot, and two little girls who never stopped talking I picked up quickly. Showing that children really do learn from sensory input. Other things I believe that have resulted from changes happening in my life deal with adulthood. I believe that since my parents divorced and my sisters had left for college that I had to quickly adapt to life as an adult. I imagine that this had a substantial effect on my brain development. They say as an adolescent, you have a hard time making good decisions, but I believe that since I was put in a tough position, my mind was able to grow and adapt faster than other people of my same age. Some of which people are just learning to do at college I have been doing for 2 years now.

Terms: Prenatal, Folic Acid, Development, Separation Anxiety, Adolescents, Sensory Information, Adulthood.

For this assignment I decided to interview my mom because she has been my primary caregiver my entire life. I began by asking her questions about her pregnancy. She said that it was a fairly normal pregnancy and that she was used to everything because I was her second child. I was 2 weeks late, but she was only in labor for about 5 hours (which is pretty short compared to some). Once I was born she told me that if I had been her first, I would be an only child. She said that my older sister was a perfect little baby and that I was much harder to take care of. I was colic (cried a lot), fussy and hard to get on a schedule till about six months old. The doctor said I was a “snacker”, because I would eat only a little bit and then fall asleep. I also got sick a lot and had ear infection about ten times. This caused me to have tubes put in my ears before I was even a year old. Like many my first word was "da-da". Due to having a sister 3 years older, I was in the high percentile in development because I had her to keep up with and teach me things. As a toddler I experienced the terrible twos. I didn’t mind very well, in the grocery store I would run and knock over things, hated car seats, very strong-willed and more mischievous than my sister. As I grew older I experienced separation anxiety. I would cry at daycare when my mom left, and for a few years I would be afraid to stay at anyone’s house that wasn’t family because I thought I would get homesick. The last separation anxiety I had was in 3rd grade when my sister moved up into the middle school and I cried for the first few days of school. Finally I outgrew that stage. One of the things my mom said I haven’t outgrew was being very neat. At a young age I would always have my toys in order and even now I still prefer to have my things organized. My mom told me that when I was little I relied on her for a lot of things, but through the years she has watched me become a more independent young adult.
I found this assignment rewarding and beneficial. I learned a lot about my development and why I am the way I am, along with some interesting stories. I thought it was funny how I would be an only child if I was my mom’s first born, because she didn’t think she could handle going through having such a naughty baby again. If that was the case, my life would be completely different. I was very surprised to hear that I was a lot different as a baby than my sister, because now many would say we are like twins. This shows how our nurture (environment) has shaped us into being similar people. Also from doing this assignment I found many similarities from what my mom described in chapter four. One being motor skills. I learned to walk a lot more quickly due to having an older sister to follow, but still went through most of the formal sequence in developing walking abilities. From having my first word be "da-da", I also experienced the language development of babbling described in the book, which is using consonants and vowels. This would be from hearing sounds immediately after birth and slowly developing speaking abilities. Another term the book talks about is separation anxiety, which is showing distress when separated from caregivers. The only difference is the book talks about how it begins at about 8 months of age, however I experienced it a little later in life between 3 and 4 and then again around 7 and 8. It’s amazing how many stages we all go through as we develop and how everyone goes through a similar process.

Terms: colic, separation anxiety, nurture, motor skills, babbling

I decided my mom would be the best person to interview for this assignment because who would know more about her pregnancy with me than her! During my mother's pregnancy with me my mom had cervical cancer which caused a lot of complications with the pregnancy. It made me have issues growing in the womb, also I was almost born after just 7 months of being in the womb because I was not developing correctly in the fetal period. Another complication was I had a rapid heart beat due to increased anxiety in my mothers womb, this followed my on later in life because to this day I still have very bad anxiety issues. The doctors did not know if I would survive, but here I am! I was already in danger of surviving but I still asked my mom if she used any drug, alcohol, or any other teratogens and she assured me she did not. As soon as I was born I was very very small, only 6.3lbs and my rapid heart beat issues still continued. Besides all the issues I had during birth I grew up a very happy baby, my mother said for the first few months I was very colicky, but after that I was very loved by my family and friends. I asked my mom if I had any sort of separation anxiety and she said I had an early attachment with my mom and sister and was most comfortable around them. My dad was around very little, but when he was I never wanted to leave his side. Im still a huge daddy’s girl to this day. I also asked her what kind of baby I was when it came to attachment, after explaining what all the options ment she said I had a secure attachment. I would play with anybody and everybody and was very happy and friendly. My sensorimotor and pre operational stages were very average, I developed at a pretty average pace. I started out with the normal babbling like most babies, but my first word I said was cookie, probably because I loved cookies more than anything. I walked before my first birthday, my mom thinks it was around 11-12 months, and I read the article about how some baby’s go through maturation faster and skip the crawl stage, but I did not skip the crawl stage. During my concrete operational stage I was very talkative, almost too talkative. I was very outgoing and demanded to wear skirts and dresses everyday, so you could say I was a huge girly girl. I learned a lot about by myself, especially how intense my pregnancy was with my mother. I also learned why I am the way I am today as a teenager, I’m still very outgoing when it comes to meeting new people and love to dress up and still be the girly girl I was 10 years ago.
List of physiological terms: womb, fetal period, teratogens,separation anxiety, early attachment, secure attachment, sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, maturation, concrete operational stage, babbling,

I thought my mom would be the best person to interview about my development from her pregnancy to present time. Actually, my mom is the gynecologist, so she knows a lot about prenatal development and childbirth. As a doctor she knew that she needs more vitamins and nutrient folic acid to help embryo develop properly, so she ate a lot of veggies and fruits. I am her first child; during pregnancy she had internship in one of the maternity hospitals in our country. Internship is not one of the easiest parts of studying medicine but due to her pregnancy she had no difficult work. The best thing was that doctors were everywhere and she could ask her colleagues if something was wrong. Her pregnancy was smooth without any difficulties and deviations. As an infant I was almost perfect baby, I loved to sleep and didn’t cry a lot. In the chapter there is a figure of average age of motor skill acquisition, mine is varies from the average a bit. Based on my mom’s words in 6 months I already could crawl and creep and in 10 months I made my first steps, so it is a bit earlier than others. As usual child, at 5 or 6 months I began bubbling, and then say my first word, which was “give me” (in Russian its one word). From the chapter I know that there are 3 types of attachment to caregivers: secure, avoidant and ambivalent. My mom is sure that I was in secure attachment. I was 2 years old when she left me for first time in the kinder garden; I cried for 3 hours and was the happiest child on earth when my mom came to take me home. Thus, separation anxiety which is feeling stressed when separated from caregivers, was common to me and now when I’m 20 years old and studying abroad, I still would be the happiest person if my mom could come here.

Eventually, a lot of information in chapter does match with my mom’s summary of my development. Now I know, more about human development which is very useful information and this interview helped me to understand it better because I can compare some facts and details from the chapter with my experience. When you can connect information from textbooks to your life, it’s much easier and interesting to understand.
Terms used: prenatal development, embryo, folic acid, motor skill acquisition, bubbling, secure avoidant and ambivalent attachments, separation anxiety.

I interviewed my mother for this assignment because I view her as being my primary caregiver. First I asked my mom about her pregnancy and about giving birth to me, if there were any complications, etc. She said that she remembered it being a really easy pregnancy the whole time. No morning sickness or anything. However, she did inform me that she always was craving Pizza Hut’s stuffed crust pizza. She also said that she thought I was a boy the whole time, not sure why. When it came time for her to give birth, I was late, so she ended up having to be induced. One huge fear she had was that I would be born like my brother. When my brother was born, he was born with a condition called gastroschisis. This is a type of hernia in which the baby is born with a hole in his abdominal wall through which his intestines and other organs protrude from. Upon being born, my brother had to be put into this bag filled with some sort of solution and rushed off to surgery. He is now 23 but still has scars from that procedure. The doctors assured my mom that there was a very small chance that I would have the same condition. They were right, and my birth was pretty normal.
After I was born, I hated it when my dad touched me or tried to pick me up. For the first few weeks, I would only really accept any attention from my mom. According to my mom, I was a little more needy and high-strung than my brother had been. Yet as I grew older I mellowed out and became a really happy baby. My brother was absolutely attached to me.
As I grew, I began to learn how to speak. My mom could not exactly remember which came first, but she knew that my first word was either “mama” or “dada.” When my teeth came in, she said that I was not overly fussy or anything. She just remembered I drooled a lot and that I was always chewing on my frozen teething toys.
According to my mom, I was right on schedule when it came to developing physical motor skills like rolling over, pushing myself up, crawling, and walking. Unlike some children, I did not skip the crawling stage of development. Once I began to walk, I developed this strange habit of rolling into my room in my little walker thing and tearing all of my clothes out of my closet to make a big pile on the floor. There are multiple pictures of me caught in the act. Another tendency I had was to run away. I joked with my mom that I have had an adventurous spirit since my toddler days. Sometimes my brother would join me in my shenanigans, like playing superheroes with bandannas as our capes. Overall, I had a healthy, happy, and easy childhood.

For this assignment I interviewed my mother. I learned a lot about myself as a child. My mother worked out frequently when she was pregnant with me and I was a very big baby, some people thought she was pregnant with twins I was so big! I was two weeks over due. My mom while pregnant had really weird cravings she said she always craved caffeine free diet mi. dew.
As a baby to infant I had very bad separation anxiety from my mom. I would cry and scream every time she tried to put me down or give me to someone else. I would even scream and cry if she tried to give my to my older sister or my dad. Only wanting my mom did not last super long just a couple of months. I still did not want other people the only people I would let hold me was my mom, dad and sister otherwise I would scream bloody murder. Once I was able to walk I followed my sister around everywhere my mom said I was her shadow I loved her like crazy. As I got around age two I still only wanted either my parents of my sister. My parents asked my doctor what they should do because I had very bad separation anxiety they said have another kid. My parents wanted one anyways, but they had one sooner then excepted so I would learn to let others hold me and learn it is ok my parents would come back. I still had and still have a hard time leaving my mom.
Another thing my mom told me was that I developed slower then most kids. I have a really hard time decided to use my left hand or right hand. I would use both or just use the one I picked up the writing utensil with. My parents had to take me to a specialist because they did not know how to make me choose. You cannot force a kid to pick what hand they write with. They later found out that I was left-handed. This later lead to writing and reading disabilities that I have today.
I was also the last child out of three to crawl, but the first to talk. My parents missed the first time I rolled over because they were on a business trip. My first words were da da, which everyone thought was weird because I always clung to my mom. It was very interesting seeing how I developed as a child and comparing it to the book.

What I learned from this experience is that I was obviously born to be extremely smart and athletic. My mom had a hard time remembering some of the questions I asked her so the answers may not be one hundred percent correct. Even though I may have learned to crawl sooner and or talk sooner, it eventually equaled out because other people can now walk faster and talk better than me. Over time everyone or at least most people go through the same steps and develop very similarly. Our maturation comes at different times but do the same things. While maturing I followed closely to the charts in the books. I did the same things as in the book but at different points in my life which is normal. My speech skills are different from everyone else’s because when I was growing up I heard my parents talking most of all. This relates to the Dynamic Systems Theory because of all the interactions I had with my parents made me who I am today. Although I don’t remember how I acted, I am an uncle and I can remember when I would play hide and seek with my nephews when they were young, very young. I would hide my face behind my hands then pop and say peek a boo. My nephews would always laugh which is related to egocentrism since he can’t see me so he assumes I’m gone. I asked my mom questions and I learned that when I was an infant I did a lot of babbling which lead to my telegraphic speech and eventually to actual words with a structure and meaning. I’m not perfect at talking now but I am much better now than when I was ten years ago. Ten years ago I probably talked with over regularization because I didn’t know better. Then over the years I went through puberty and became an adult, or as close to as I can. Then through development, I grew taller and more muscular and have gone through high school. Though high school, in a way I went through intimacy versus isolation because I am facing the challenge of a committed long-term friendship and romance.

Maturation, Dynamic Systems Theory, egocentrism, babbling, telegraphic speech, over regularization, puberty, intimacy versus isolation

I decided to interview my mother for this assignment. I was always much more close to her than I was my father. She was also a stay-at-home mom for the majority of my childhood. My father worked from 8 till 5 nearly everyday, and before she became pregnant with me, she worked at a local insurance business. She decided to quit the job so she could raise me. My mother believed it was the best choice and did not believe in sending her children off to a caretaker each day. I was the first born out of three. When she was pregnant, she had cravings for pasta. She stayed away from teratogens too. I had to have an induced birth, which means that the birthing process was sped up through medication to have my birth on time. When I was born, I was average size. As a baby I developed quickly and was extremely mild. I was attached to my mother as a child, because I was with her the majority of the time; other than the occasional babysitter. I had secure attachment, but i rarely became distressed when a friendly figure left. I rarely caused a problem and for the majority of the time had a very mild/easy going mood. I matured quickly and began walking at an early age. I was able to talk around with assistance around 7 months old. Just under the age of 2 I would repeat books that my read to me. Skipping ahead, I seemed to develop mental skills earlier than average. I hit the preoperational stage around the age of 2, and the concrete operational stage at about 6 and a half years.

I thought this was extremely interesting. I seemed to develop quicker than what the book described. I experienced rather mature emotions, according to my mother, and was well behaved. Until this assignment, I had never talked about this or know much about myself when I was a child. I researched induced birth after it was brought up and it was intrigued me. I did not have any problems with my health or disabilities either. It was a cool and interesting experience to have with my mother. From many of those details, I now understand why we have such a close bond.

terms: teratogens, induced birth, secure attachment, maturated, mental skills, preoperational stage, operational stage

During this interview with my mom I found that I have some similarities to “normal” babies and some differences. For example I was brought into the world from a c section. This differed me from other babies because I was a much bigger baby, and the fact that I wasn’t necessarily a pre-mature baby, but I came out a few days early. During birth the doctor couldn’t believe how much longer I was than other babies he has delivered in the past. Besides my height I was always a step ahead of the average baby. I started to roll over in a month or so, I could sit with a little support around 3.5 months, sit without support around 4.5 months, and eventually around 11.5 months I was walking on my own. Being “ahead of my time,” my sensory development was growing rapidly. I could start to watch TV and look at picture books and then remember stuff I have seen or heard before when it would reoccur. Early attachment wasn’t a problem for me because when I would go to daycare I would know my parents would always come get me so why worry when they are gone. This would carry into school. Many kids are resistant in going to school for the first time. Yea it is hard to say goodbye for the first day, but when you go to school with some kids from daycare you connect with them, spend time with them, and bond with them.

For the speech part of my progression I would babble on about who knows what, make noises, make other things such as toys make a noise, and I would try to mimic what I would hear. One of my favorite places as a kid to go was the zoo. The Omaha Zoo and The Blank Park Zoo were the two I used to always go too. This was good for the noise aspect of recreating noises that I would hear from animals, but it also was a social aspect. The social aspect of this was that when you are in public and someone sees a little baby the first thing is they try to talk to it or pick it up. Some babies don’t mind when strangers come around but others do. I was what my mom called a “social baby.” I enjoyed going out in public and seeing new people, seeing the same two people (mom and dad) everyday could get boring as you would imagine.

In some aspects in my childhood I was above average in growth and other areas, but for the most part I was a social, happy, and willing to try whatever I could to get what I wanted baby. I think this carried into adulthood because I still am tall, social, happy, and I still try hard to get what I want. Those genes in my system stood tall with me through the years and hopefully will continue to stay and grow with me into the older years of adulthood in order to make me more mature, happy, and successful in life.

I interviewed my mother and asked her about how I was when I was a baby and I actually found out some interesting things that I did not know about myself when I was a child. During her pregnancy she told me that she could not eat meat because it made her sick, something specific like that sort of threw me when realizing that some people have very explicit problems during their pregnancy and that one happened to be my mothers. She also told me that she was diagnosed toxemic during her 7th month of pregnancy and had to be put on bed rest; I had to look up what happens if you are toxemic and it is a swelling of the hands and feet, and high blood pressure and if not treated the mother may go into a coma and the baby may be stillborn. I had no idea that my mother had this sickness during the end of her pregnancy and how serious of an illness it could become if it not treated during their pregnancy.
When I asked her about how I was when I was a baby and she said that I was a very laidback child when growing up. When I asked her what that meant she said that I was a very quiet baby and would only cry when I was hungry or hurt and not much after that. She also told me that I was a very easy baby to make happy or laugh and that it was easy for them to calm me down if I did end up crying out during the day. Overall she said that I was a very easy child to raise during my younger years.
When I asked her about the milestones in my early life she stated that I was kind of all over the place when it came to important parts of growing up. She stated that I learned to roll over when I was 8 weeks old and able to walk when I was at 11 months. She also stated that my first teeth grew in late at about 10 months. It made me realize that even though there is a “standard” time frame for maturation it all really depends on your body on when it is ready to develop and that could take longer or shorter from person to person.
I rather enjoyed the experience of finding out how I acted as a baby and was not really surprised that I was a very quiet baby and that it has followed me until this day, since I have always been sort of the quiet type. I had no idea that she was diagnosed as toxemic and the risk that goes along with it and how she had to be on bed rest for a month, learning some of these things has shown me that sometimes raising a child can be all over the board when it comes to difficulty per child and I just happened to be an easy child to take care of.

For this assignment I decided to to interview my biological mother. I don't favor my mother over my father I think of them equally, I just figured that my mother would remember more about my early childhood and birth then my father. The first question I decided to lead off with was, was there anything different or special you did with me that you did not do with my siblings? I chose this because being the youngest and the third child born, maybe she wanted to try some new tactics. For the record my brother and sister turned out just fine, I just wanted to know. She actually said that she did try something else. She wouldn't say the word no around me when I was a baby. She would say other phrases with the same meaning as no like bad or don't do that. She did this because besides the babbling like ma ma ma and da da da, my brother and sisters both first and favorite words were no. She said that it worked for the most part and that I was saying other words first but I ended up learning the word no soon after. Ironically my baby nephews favorite word right now is no, and he is just over a year old. I asked If there were any other things wrong or different about the way that I developed. Her response was no that I developed normally just like my brother and sister. The only thing that she said was different about me was that I was a ten pound baby, which generally is a pretty big baby. Being born so big I was bigger than my cousin who was born three months sooner than me. What I thought was weird is how I was growing so fast as a child but in middle school I was always one of the shortest ones as I was 4'2" all throughout middle school. My freshman year I hit a big growth spurt and now I am 5'11" and the tallest in my family. I asked her about my birth and she said it was fairly easy being the third born and that when she was in labor with my sister it took a long time, something like eight hours, so I was a breeze. From talking to my mother I learned that even if you perform different theories or ways of raising a baby into a toddler, if your in the same family it will all turn out the same in the end because they are the ones raising you and teaching you. One thing that I found very interesting about the chapter was when they said that a baby will grasp on to something if it feels something in its hand. I had a nephew born just last year and I experienced this when I put my finger in his hand and he grabbed onto it, I thought he was just trying to hold my hand I did not know that this was a reflex, so I was pretty excited when he was holding my hand. Learning that info just kind of killed my mood because it was a reflex, not him actually trying to hold my hand.

For this assignment I interviewed my mother.
I was born in 1996. I was the first and only child for my mother and father. (My parents would later get divorced; my mother remarried and had two more children).
While my mom was pregnant, she took prenatal vitamins everyday and drank plenty of water. She said she did everything she possibly could to be healthy. She was so excited to be pregnant and couldn't wait for my arrival.
My mother said that when I was born, I was extremely sick. I had pneumonia and hydrocephalus. I was born via C-section three days after my due date because I didn’t want to come out. I acquired pneumonia while in my mom’s stomach after I ate my own fecal matter. After I was born, I was rushed into another room so they could remove the fecal matter from my throat. My mother said she was so upset because she didn't get to hold me right away and heard my muffled screams in the next room. An hour later my mother said she was finally able to hold me. She said I looked healthy and she couldn't tell I was sick. I didn't open my eyes until she spoke to me. She then said that my dad reached his pinky finger out and I grasped it tightly.
The doctor had more bad news for them. I had hydrocephalus, a condition where my head was extremely large due to fluid buildup. There was a possibility I could either be mentally challenged, suffer seizures, or die. Because of this condition, I also had three soft spots on my head that wouldn't go away until I was sixteen months. This lead to frequent doctor visits. My mother said that she had to take me to the doctor office every week for six months so they could measure my head. They would then send the results to the Iowa City hospital where they would determine if my head was growing more or if it was under control. Once the six months passed, she only had to bring me in every month to get my head measured until I was eighteen months old. By then, the doctors had determined me to be extremely lucky, for I would not suffer from mental disabilities or seizures. My mom said she was extremely grateful for that.
At eleven months, I took my first steps. My mom said she was sitting on the couch reading while my dad played with me on the floor. I stood up with assistance from my dad and yelled “momma” and took a single step towards her. After that, my mom couldn't remember every exact “first” of mine. She said I was a very active baby. Always curious as to what was going on. I constantly crawled around and always messed with our pet dog.
As I reached four years old, I became very attached to my mother. My parents were divorcing at this time and I spent a majority of my time with my mother and grandmother. Whenever my mom would leave for work, I would become very upset and wail uncontrollably. I eventually would calm down by my grandma slowly rocking me in her chair. I hated being away from my mom. I would always worry that she wouldn't come back to me, she said. I was attached to her hip all the time.
As I grew, so did my mind, according to my mother. I loved going to school. On my first day of kindergarten I was bouncing off the walls. She said the moment she pulled into the school parking lot I ran out of the car. She said I would come home daily and be sure to practice my spelling words, or read a book. She said I also began to make many friendships with the neighbor kids at around age seven. I was always outside riding my bike with them or running around in the backyard.
As I developed into an adolescent, my mother said I still was respectful towards her and always helped around the house, which was true. I never had that rebellious stage of my life. My mother ended our small interview by saying that she went through a lot raising me. I was constantly sick as a baby and she said it seemed as if there was always something wrong with me. But aside from that, she called me her “miracle baby” and that she would do it all again in a heartbeat.
After my interview with my mother, I noticed that my development matched quite a bit with the book. For starters, I channeled the inborn reflexes after birth when I squeezed my father’s pinky finger. I also was able to walk without assistance by twelve months. I experienced attachment with my mother. I always wanted her around and if she wasn't I would freak out. I was obsessed with her! I also had cognitive development. I learned new things like spelling words and animals. My mind was constantly changing based on the things I learned. As an adolescent, my way of thinking changed again and I matured into a young adult.

In this assignment, I interviewed my mom about her pregnancy and upbringing of me. I asked many questions, such as what were weird food cravings she had while pregnant, when I first started walking, what were my first words, etcetera. I knew many facts about my infancy prior to this interview, but it was nice to refresh my memory and be able to apply these findings to the information in this chapter.

I learned that, like most in most young children, I suffered from separation anxiety. According to the book, I suffered from secure attachment, meaning I would become upset when my parents left my eyesight but upon their return and consolation I calmed down and was content again. As I grew older though, I was more willing to be separated from them for a short time, for example when I was babysat. My mom did not eat anything unusual and ate the same portions and foods she always ate before pregnant, but she did have an unusual pregnancy. I was a week late and instead of the water breaking the placenta began to tear causing her to bleed. She was rushed to the hospital and was administered a drug in order to force contractions and my birth. I could have died. After I was born, however, my brain development began to grow rapidly.

Unlike most babies in the book, I seemed to notice my surrounds early, specifically within the first month, when normally environmental awareness appears shortly after the second month. Also unlike the book, I began to crawl first at six months, while average babies start crawling at ten. This was also and irregularity because I slept on my back, a factor that usually causes babies to skip the crawling phase. I took my first steps at nine-in-a-half months, when common babies begin walking between eleven and twelve months. My parents taught me how to walk by having me support myself with a table or toy walker, then try to push away from the support and step towards their outreached arms. I think this got me more comfortable with using my legs while other babies are held by their arms and encouraged to walk, causing them to rely more on their parents for assistance. Also, unlike other babies listed in the book, I was not easily fooled when objects were hidden. The book states that most infants will not search for an object they have seen being hidden. I, on the other hand, knew an object was hidden and would go to its hiding spot immediately to retrieve it. And finally I began to talk early and did not have trouble in the sensorimotor stage. This stage usually causes babies up to two years old to have problems identifying objects. My mom told me that I could identify all the common animals listed in my baby books, toys, and in the real world by age one. Around the same time I learned to say “please” and “thank you”, entering my early telegraphic phase a few months early. In total, I could say around forty words after my first year. I guess you can say I was smarter than the average baby.

Separation anxiety, Secure attachment, environmental awareness, sensorimotor stage, telegraphic phase

I called my parents and I asked them about what is like for them raising me as a young child. I first asked my mom what her pregnancy was like and she said that it was pretty uneventful. Now I should tell you about what was going on during the time of my mom’s pregnancy. About half way through my mom’s pregnancy, my parents moved to an apartment in Marshalltown and thirty days later I was born. That was all that happened until I was born. I was a natural birth and I weighed eight pounds one ounce, which was a little heavy for a newborn. I ended up having a bigger head than newborns usually have and I came home on Halloween. As a baby I was really calm and slept well at night. Some of the bad experiences that my parents had were when they had to take me to the hospital to get tubes put in my ears. As a baby I had drainage in my ears and ended up having four sets of tubes put in my ears. When I was about two years old, I would crawl under my dad’s sink and I would hide there from my parents. As a young child I loved to be outside and during the summer I would want to go swimming all the time.
Reflecting on my experiences and what is told in the chapter, I was very similar to what they talk about young children being like in the chapter. I was a very happy person as a child and I was very connected to my parents. In the chapter, a developmental psychologist named Mary D. Salter Ainsworth created the strange-situation test where parents leave their newborns and see how they react. The baby will either keep playing or it will start crying. I was someone that never wanted to leave their parents. When I would go to the babysitters while I was still young, I wouldn’t like seeing my parents leave me. I developed as a normal child would. It’s important to know how you developed as a child because if there is something that you do now as a college student, there may be an explanation for what you do due to something that might have happened to you as a child. Every child has that favorite thing that they always what their parents to read to them. For me, it was a book called “Hungry Caterpillar,” and that was a book that I wanted my parents to read to me all the time.

In order to complete this assignment, I am required to interview caregivers. Upon receiving information and stories from both my mom and dad, and along with the knowledge I already had, I was able to learn a bit more about what I was like before I had any recollection of what was going on. To start things off, I was the middle child so my parents had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen. I turned out to be the largest baby among my siblings weighing 10lbs 10 oz. Whether or not this had to do with the actions my mother and father did, both before and after birth, it appears as though they did something right. I was very healthy and rather big in baby terms. On terms of walking, crawling, and talking, I found that I fell almost exactly to scale with the timeline listed in the book. I was rather surprised to see that for the most part, I followed what the “normal” is, according to the information in the book. Through examining that, I was reassured (even though I knew) that I was raised properly and taken care of well. I feel I learned a lot from reading this chapter and now have an idea for my actions when the time comes to have children.

For this assignment, I interviewed my biological Mother. Generally because my dad is just always busy for the most part, whether it’s farming, welding, working on tractors, or selling seed. It’s always been that way, but he provides for the family and still has time to share with us. I am the youngest of four by six years, and was mostly taken care of by my Mom who was the stay at home and farmer’s wife type. The first thing I asked her was how I was different from my older siblings. She said I definitely cried the least out of the four, and was also the most adventurous. She said when I was a toddler, I always went missing from the house, and obviously, she always freaked. We live on a big acreage, so it was an absolute paradise for a curious little guy to explore. I never went missing because I got mad at my family or something, it was just because I didn’t want to be trapped in the house. This resulted in me being hooked to a leash whenever we went on vacation, so yeah, that was most of my childhood. She went on to say the biggest thing that was different from my older sisters and brother was my love of sports throughout my life. My mom said I always played with a ball of some kind, and watched sports on T.V. on a regular basis, even at such a young age. My siblings however, didn’t seem to have much interest in sports. My sisters did track and volleyball in middle school, while my brother did nothing. I did basketball, track, soccer, baseball, as well as football, and I continue to play football here at UNI. One last thing my Mom said that was different from my other siblings was that I was the most difficult to give birth to, which is weird because the last child is usually the easiest to give birth to I thought. She said the labor lasted 14 hours, but everything went fine after that. I was a regular sized baby but as soon as I got to Pre-School, I was much bigger than everyone else. This theme seemed to continue all throughout school, and I am 6’3 now. One thing I found that transfers from one of the chapters into my life, is when I held my nephew at the hospital when I was 12. It grasped my finger, and I was amazed. I thought the baby actually knew to grab my finger, but little did I know at the time, it’s just a reflex that all babies have. Learning this kind of bummed me out to say the least.

For this assignment, I interviewed my mom. She carried me for nine months and has been with me for 18 years, so I figured she was my best choice. I was the third child in my family so my mom was used to pregnancy. When she found out she was pregnant she started eating healthier by adding more fruits and vegetables to her diet, and kept to her normal daily walking routine; nothing to specific. She also made sure to cut out the amount of Diet Coke she drank and substituted that for more water and milk.
I learned that I was a very happy baby and I never cried too much unless it was for common reasons (hungry, wet, etc.). I started to crawl around six months and ended up taking my first steps after my first birthday six months later. After that I was always a very active child always wanting to ride bikes, run around, or jump on the trampoline with my brother and sister. My first word was “Dain”, which is my brother’s name around nine months and after that I couldn’t stop talking. I was always very interactive with my friends and other kids in elementary school, I normally was the one getting in trouble for talking when I wasn’t supposed to. I still have trouble with that to this day.
During elementary school I was a major “tomboy”, unlike my sister who was a very girly girl. I always wanted to hangout with my brother and play basketball or run around and play wiffle-ball in the backyard instead of playing with Barbie’s. Because of this, my life has been revolved around sports and I couldn’t imagine it any other way. Until this assignment, I never realized how much impact my actions had on my life now from when I was a child.
Preschool is where I struggled being away from home for the first few days but I got used to it after the first two weeks. That is similar to my college experience. Although I am not far away from my home, the first two weeks I struggled being without my normal routine. But now, I am completely comfortable in my new atmosphere. I never really experienced serious separation anxiety but one thing I did struggle with was middle school. In sixth grade my parents got divorced, I went to a school where I only knew two people, and a year later my brother and sister went to college. I remember never wanting to go to school or hangout with my friends; I just wanted to be alone. But I ended up working through it with the help of my friends. This experience showed me that I need other people in my life to help me out when I need it most, not to shove people away. Going through that experience has helped me out whenever I have problems in my life now.

I learned a couple things when in interviewed my mom about my development. Previously I did ask a lot of these questions, because when I was younger I would get curious and asked. Sometimes she would remember and sometimes she wouldn’t, but that is understandable. The first thing that I learned is that when I was left with strangers I didn’t really cry when my mom left. It might have been because she thought I was referring when I was left at my grandparents and I was comfortable with them. Nevertheless this surprised me. I will admit I am somewhat of a momma’s boy and especially when I was a kid. Being calm when she left was surprising to me because I was really attached, like many kids, to my mom.
The next thing that I learned is that I was walking at the same time the book shows infants walk at. I was actually a little sooner than the book. I asked my mom if she remembered doing anything special with me or my siblings that would have helped us walk at an earlier age. She replied that she didn’t think she did anything abnormal. I felt kind of cool when I heard this because I felt like I was better than the average baby, but mostly everyone learns to walk at some point, so its not that big of a deal.
Another shocking thing that I learned and don’t really know the exact answer to was my development in the womb. My mom said she ate and did basically the same thing while pregnant with me and my siblings. The weird thing was I was a lot bigger than them. I am just curious if weight or size is a developmental thing in the womb, and what would have made me develop more than my siblings. The other strange thing is that I am a lot smaller than my brother now, even though I was quite a larger baby. I just am curious about this.
The last thing that I learned was that I was a shy, docile young kid. This has even continued I feel into my older self. Even as a teenager it says in the book you get rowdy and talk back against your parents, but I never did that. I don’t know if it was that there could have been punishment or that’s just my personality, but I was happy to know that I wasn’t a crazy infant or child. I have cousins that are like that and I am glad I didn’t put my parents through that.

For this assignment I decided to discuss with my mom and her general experience raising me and my other siblings during our childhood years. I asked how it was raising us and she replied with a slight grin and said “terrible”. I began laughing and my mom gave me examples of how bad I was as a child and the amount of trouble I gave her when raising me. She also shared stories of how my brother stole entire paycheck to go buy a candy bar when she was taking a nap. My brother received the worst beating that he had ever experienced in his entire life. What surprised me was when my mom said that I was a lot worse than my brother as a child, but I never experienced the physical punishment that my brother had to endure as child. I remembered her talking about how my nephew and I were alone in my apartment for a couple minutes and ended up covering the entire house in flour and eggs; we believed that we were amazing chefs, from what my mom told me. There was also an incident in which me and my nephew left our apartment and walked about a mile away from the apartment to a grocery store. A police officer noticed us and decided to give us a ride back. One can only imagine what my mother felt seeing her 3 year old son in the back of a police car.
Aside from the stories and punishments, I learned that my mom was a very loving and caring woman who was definitely over protective of me more than my other siblings. She came from a very family-oriented family and she inherited that way of life and shared it with me and my siblings. This is why I talk to my mom and my siblings every day just to see how they are doing; it is because I care for them, sometimes more so than I care for myself. My mom is willing to continue working for however long she needs to in order for me to finish college and succeed in life. I have learned that she is also willing to give everything she has to someone in need. She wanted to give almost all the money she had to a friend, not even a family member, so they could pay their bills before my mom paid her own. I love my mom for being such a selfless person and I am very thankful to have been raised this way and I intend to continue to do what she taught me and eventually teach my future children the same things that I learned.

Before I can divulge into my comment, it is best that I explain my family. Life was pretty normal for me up until I was eight. My family consisted of my dad, mom, brother and me. Around the time I was eight years old, my parents got divorced and my dad gained full custody of my brother and me. I had to visit my mom every other weekend until she decided we only had to come once a month. During this time I started to feel that she wasn’t a mom to me. She barely called me to see how life was going. In 2007, my dad started dating a woman who recently got divorced. She has two children and my brother and I connected very well with them. In 2010 my mom terminated her rights and I have not had any contact with her since. In June of the same year my dad got remarried. My parents had another child in 2012 which I believe has brought our family closer together. I call my step-mom my mom now and have been calling her that for a couple years. I believe that she is a far better mom than my birth mother. She has taught me many things that my birth mother never taught me. She treats me like her own daughter, not just a step-daughter. For this reason I decided interview both of my parents.
I decided to ask my dad questions first, because he took care of me most of my life on his own. I learned that once I was born, my birth mother started backing out on her role of being my mom. It was like she was trying to make herself disappear from my life. Luckily my dad stepped in and took care of me. I found out that I became really sick when I was four. I would not eat anything and if I did, I couldn’t hold it down. My dad said because of this, they removed my tonsils and after that I started eating almost any food they gave me. One thing I learned that surprised me when I was four or younger (my dad didn’t specify the age) I never cried when he dropped me off a babysitter’s house. As I look back on this I think that I would have cried because since my birth mother was being less available as my mom, my dad might do the same. I’m not sure if I never cried because I had so must trust in my dad and hoped that he wouldn’t leave me. I also learned that I watched some of the same television shows as my brother. My dad would always try to spend equal time with my brother and me, but sometimes it was hard to do. I never really had a close bond with my dad because it seemed that he would be spending more time with my brother. I can’t blame my dad because I know he was trying his best.
I then decided to ask my mom some questions, even though she didn’t help raise me until I was 12. One thing I found out was my parents actually met each other when I was about a year old. My birth mom and dad were looking at a house that my mom and her husband at the time were moving out of. My mom said that my birth mom was more interested in where she was going to put the furniture than she was in taking care of me. After hearing this I wasn’t really surprised. Once I realized that she didn’t want to be an active part of my life, I realized I didn’t care anymore. My mom said that one day at work my birth mother mentioned how excited she was that she was pregnant again. This was after I born. With this pregnancy she miscarried and it was like she gave up. Once she and my dad got divorced, I took on many responsibilities. My mom said that when she met me in 2007, I was always worried about cleaning the house. I was the only girl in the house and my dad and brother didn’t seemed interested in helping, so I did it by myself. I took control and learned how to do things by myself; such as putting my hair in a pony, curling my hair, picking out clothes that matched and painting my nails. I believe that my past has helped me develop into the person I am today.
My experiences as a child do not match the information in the book. Usually both mom and dad are actively present in their children’s lives and teach them new information. They help guide them certain ways and teach them what is right and wrong. Since I lived with my dad I feel that I was not taught some of these things that were important to know. I know that I can’t blame him, but sometimes I wish I had a mom around when I was still learning new things. I’m can’t say what my attachment style is. From what I learned from my dad was that I never cried when I was dropped off at a babysitters. He said I was always happy to see him when he returned, but the attachment styles in the book don’t add up to this. I always thought I had a secure attachment style before this, but now I’m not so sure. From this assignment I learned that I am a strong person and have learned to look on the bright side. Even though I didn’t have a mom around when I needed her the most, I relied on my dad and other family members to help me out. With my new family with my brothers and sisters, I know that I will always have people who love me and will support me with anything I do.
Terms: secure attachment

For this assignment I interviewed my mom. My parents have never been married and they were on and off again parents. But my father has also been active in my life and my parents get along very well which made growing up for my very easy. I believe that my life would be different if my parents did not get along. My mom told me that her pregnancy was very easy until I was born. I was born a week early and her theory to that is she remembers having a conversation with me (while I was still her tummy) saying that I needed to come a week early because she was done being pregnant and I did. I was a breech baby, which means I was coming out butt first and they had to do a emergency C-section. Both my hips were dislocated and I had to wear braces for till I was six months. It was really interesting learning the part where she told me to come out a week early and I did. As much as me and mom bump heads I've always listened to her. My mother is a strong and independent woman who raised me, went to school full time, and worked full time. She did that all by herself with the help of my father but it was mostly just her. She never really babied me. Neither of my parents did, they both wanted me to be an independent person. I like to think I became the person they wanted me to be. They were not push overs, when I got in trouble they stuck with the consequence, and they were not my friends they are parents they made that pretty clear. My mom told me I was a real easy kid from day one to now. I think that might have to do with them not babying me but I am not sure. I learned that raising a kid is not easy. Soon as a baby comes into your life you have the biggest responsibility and that's to take care of another human being for the rest of your life. The pressure parents have I can't even imagine and I hope I don't have to for awhile. This assignment was pretty fun only because I got to learn more about myself as a young child and got to know my moms personal insight.

The primary caregiver that I interviewed was my mom. This makes sense since was the one who was ALWAYS there for me no matter what (not saying my father wasn’t either, but my mom was more relating). As a boy I think that my relationship with my mom has been really close and helped me out in many situations. Just like the test done by Harlow with the baby monkeys; my mom was the cloth AND the wire mom. She both nourished and nurtured me, probably a little more than just a warm cover though. Throughout my maturation process my mom says that I was the easy child to raise (compared to my brother who was said to be the “dramatic” one). I was an early learner babbling at an early age and as many other babies my first word was dad. I began to get teeth at the age of 3 months and was a very active child when I began to walk at 10 months. As a kid I was very outdoorsy and my mom said that I loved to go catch frogs or “ribbets” as I called them. Once I hit puberty my mom had already dealt with my brothers fits and figured she had to do the same with me. She said that I was not as bad as my brother; besides a few incidents. I think that those few incidents probably had a lot to do with the hormones and clique problems that I might have been having. Everyone has those transitions of friends throughout their life and mine happened about the same time I was going through puberty. The way it sounds I was a somewhat easy child to raise. I know once I began to date and was challenged by the intimacy versus isolation, it did not affect the closeness with my mother. I have been dating the same girl for around 6 years and my relationship with my mother hadn’t changed at all. I found the information that I found from my mom was actually a lot like the chapter; just in smaller less scientific words.
The psychological terms I used were; primary caregiver, maturation, nurture, hormones, cliques, babbling, intimacy versus isolation

I called up my mother for this assignment. Apparently I was quite the handful as a baby. One who would never sleep and in order to fall asleep they, being my parents would have to put me in the car and drive around until I did fall asleep. That was my biggest pain about me when I was a baby when I asked how I handled her leaving the room or her talking to a friend while I was left alone I did much better I wouldn't mind that she left and happily played along by myself. a neat thing to note was until I hit the age of seven I had competently white hair which was interesting to look at it turned blonde eventually but took awhile.

When I began my question and answer session with my dad I quickly realized he did not remember the typical things someone would usually ask about or usual details a parent would share, but more unique details about my childhood. He remembered that the first movie I saw in theater was Mulan and that I had to drink chocolate milk before I would go to bed, but not the first time I sat up, laughed, or rolled over. When I asked how he would have described me as a baby, he said mellow. He said that I did not cry much and that I was not really fussy. He said I was not much of a troublemaker, but my sass developed when I was more of a toddler. I do not have a baby book from my childhood, so there were a lot of things that I could not completely pinpoint down, but he did remember a few things that I was able to compare with things that I learned in the book. For example, I first started walking around the age of ten months old and it said in the book that the average age was about twelve months old. He said that I loved playing with dolls and that I was very attached to my blanket. I think that it is very accurate because I still have a good amount of my stuffed animals from childhood. He told me that my first word was dad, which seems average. As far as attachment goes, I wanted to be with my dad because he was my dad, but I never threw tantrums when I was with someone else. This leads me to the conclusion that I did not suffer badly from separation anxiety as a child. He mentioned that when I began eating solid foods that I would spit them out at him, but that quickly stopped when my meals would be cut short because of my actions. When I was a little older I went through a “biting phase”. I tried to bite people when I got mad, but that was handled with hot sauce on my tongue every time I bit someone. My dad mentioned that from a young age he could tell that I would be a leader (as soon as I grew out of the biting) based upon the way I would interact with my peers at daycare and then at school. I also participated in dance classes and he said that it was obvious that I would continue to perform for others because I was not shy in front of the audience. I thought it was really nice being able to talk to my dad about my childhood experiences. I thought it was crazy how he remembered the things that he did. Although he could not remember things that I thought would be the most important to know, he remembered things that we important to him. It made our conversation more meaningful being able to talk about experiences rather than moments. I truly enjoyed being able to talk about development with my dad.

After reading this chapter, I interviewed my mom over FaceTime and asked her some questions about my developmental process. I proposed questions such as: What were some highlights of your pregnancy with me?; What was my main attachment style?; What were some of my most memorable “firsts”?; etc. Here are some of the interesting answers I received.
Before I was born, during my fetal period, my mom would read to my brothers before bedtime. She said that she read to them so that I could begin to hear her voice. During the pregnancy, my mom had foot surgery (bunionectomy) and she could not go under any anesthetics because she was pregnant. If she had been under anesthesia, it would have been considered a teratogen because it could have caused birth defects for me. During the surgery, since she was not allowed any anesthesia, my heart rate jumped from 150 to 240. I was just five months along, so they were worried I could have been severely impacted. They quickly ended the surgery for my sake. After 40 weeks, to the day, I was born and very healthy.
My motor skills were very similar to those in the book. I sat up for the first time without any help at six months. In the book, it shows that five and a half months is the average age to sit without support. The first time I crawled was at seven months, which is pretty early in the average maturation stages. According to the figure, pulling self up to a standing position normally occurs at nearly eight months, but I didn’t do so until nine months old. I began to stand alone and walk without assistance nearly one month prior to the average age.
Sensory development, for me, began in the womb when when my mom would read stories to my brothers and me. Proceeding delivery, all of my vials were normal. I could hear, see, smell, taste, and touch just as any other typical infant could. My mom stated that I had a keen sense of hearing sounds and voices.
In the interview, I learned that I had a secure attachment style. Starting from birth, my caregivers, being my biological mother and father, formed strong connections with me. Whenever I would cry, they would try to fix whatever the problem was until I would be content. Around three weeks, I smiled for the first time to my mom. She said that I would smile to her talking to me and being pretty close to my face. This is a little early compared to the normal age, according to the book. Still, not too far off to become a concern. I was shown a lot of love and care, which impacted my attachment style. This made me confident to be away from my caregivers, but still upset when they would leave. When my mom would pick me up from daycare, she said I would try to run to her, often times getting tripped up in my own feet, because I was so excited to see her.
During adolescents, I hit puberty at a normal age, getting my first menstruation cycle at about 13 years old. Although, I never really had my growth spurt, I did develop a more mature and womanly body. I never really went through any troubles with gender identity. I was always a very feminine little girl, and now young lady. Between my parents and me, we never really had too many issues. My parents said through infantry to present time, I would never argue back or try to be rebellious. She said I was a very easy child to raise, being respectful, honest, and responsible. I had a heavy conscious whenever I would do something I thought was wrong. My mom told me one story from when I was in third grade: I threw peanuts on the ground in front of my friends to be cool and I came home crying, telling my mom that I had littered and I thought I was going to “hell”. She said I had many instances such as this throughout my childhood. This shows that I was at a postconventional level of moral reasoning.
Through this interview, I learned a lot about myself that I didn’t know before. I really enjoyed comparing my developmental stages to the average human in the textbook.

Alberto Sveum
Being that I did not physically see my mother in the course of this assignment, I took to the interweb to request this required interview. I tried to request information that I would not necessarily know or be aware of beforehand.
My mother recounted a rather graphic tale of medical complications when I was being born, much to my distaste. I was pretty much an average kid, and just as the chapter discussed speaking in incomplete sentences and communicating using key words, my mother said my first word was "momma" and I, too spoke without using accurate syntax.
I was told that we read lots of books together and I fervently enjoyed playing with toy balls, which would make sense because these are very basic toys. My mother rode a bicycle and took me around in a cart quite a bit along with frequent stroller rides.
My mother told me I began walking around age one and I did not crawl, likely because I was placed on my back to sleep, as recommended in the chapter. I did not cry a lot, and I was more of the type of child to miss my mother when she was out of my sight and be comforted when she returned.
Altogether, it is interesting to consider what is memorable about infant years for different people. My mom seemed to not remember to well when I developed in certain ways mentally, and this is probably what I would be most interested in learning. I want to try and nurture cognitive traits of my children and explore the different things discussed in the chapter like self-awareness and ability to understand what happens when things go out of sight.
Psychological terms:syntax, cognitive development, birth

I decided to talk to my mom about her experience with my birth and early childhood, since she would have more insight into the physical aspects of the pregnancy. She said that once she found out that she was pregnant, she began to take prenatal vitamins and also changed her diet to eating healthier, because she realized that her diet and lifestyle would also affect me and my health. I was born pretty much around my due date, so I was a healthy sized baby, and was born through a natural birth unlike my older sister who was delivered through a c-section. My mom said that my baby book reads at that point that she was really glad that she was able to perform a natural birth because for some reason there was a belief that after delivering through a c-section, all pregnancies following had to be delivered the same way. I started walking at about 8 months old, which seems to be a bit earlier than normal. I could also write my full name at 4, which is the age that I went to preschool, and I started to read at about 5. I was a very fast learner and loved to read so much. According to my mom, I wasn’t fussy or colicky as a baby, I was very easy going and hardly ever cried. My attachment variation was actually avoidant attachment, because I didn’t seem to mind when my parents would leave. My mom also pointed out that I have always liked to be myself and do things on my own, so that is one thing that has never really changed.
When I was young I was very outgoing and loved attention, I was always really happy. I was very opinionated and independent, not minding being by myself as I stated earlier. When I was in elementary school, I was a huge “tomboy” and very frequently wore boy clothes, I even got my hair cut really short. This was a very important stage in my life, I later realized, in sorting out my thoughts and knowledge on gender standards and identity.
As I got older, I definitely remained independent and opinionated, and I still have a very introverted personality, meaning that while I am able to be outgoing in group settings at times, I very much need time alone to “recharge”. I really do feel like the way I was raised/cared for as a child impacted my development into who I am today.

To complete this assignment, I decided to interview my mom. I enjoyed catching up with her, along with learning a ton about my early stages in life. I wasn’t sure about how much she documented when I was growing up; however, I was surprised. Being the first born, she made sure to make note of nearly everything that happened. Mom told me she was very cautions when she was pregnant with me, because I was her firstborn and she didn’t want to make any mistakes. She had a fairly normal pregnancy. I was born at Mercy Hospital in Dubuque, Iowa on June 4th, 1995, five days late. I arrived home two days after I was born, and the rest of my family was very excited to see me. My mom described my infancy as always ‘on schedule,’ except sometimes I would get fussy in the evenings. I was a typical baby; sleeping for four hours at a time at first, eating and then going right back to sleep. Finally, at nine weeks, I began sleeping through the entire night. As I went through the maturation process, I was on schedule. I sat up by myself at six months, held a cup at seven months, crawled at ten months, and took my first steps by myself on my first birthday. Although I was never too cranky, my dad could always calm me down easier than my mom because apparently I sensed that he was more relaxed. I then asked my mom what kind of attachment I portrayed. She said I was always a secure attachment, but sometimes I wouldn’t want to be put down to play. I always liked the comfort of my mother’s arms. At the age of three my doctor referred to me as a ‘chatterbox’ because I was always talking. I was also very observant and always asking tons of questions, just like an average young kid. I was always in the eighty to ninety percentile in height and weight at my checkups. I always would babble off incomplete phrases like any typical toddler such as ‘want more,’ or ‘give that’ which are examples of telegraphic speech.
I enjoyed interviewing my mom and learning about different aspects of my childhood. I definitely understand the chapter better now after being able to tie it to something that relates to me. I learned a lot of details about my childhood that I was completely unaware of, such as that I walked for the first time on my first birthday, and that my dad picked out my name when my mom was only three months pregnant. This assignment was definitely the most enjoyable one thus far. Terms: maturation, secure attachment, telegraphic speech, percentile, infancy

I would’ve found it more beneficial to interview both my mother and father, but because my parents got divorced less than a year after I was born, I was only able to interview my mom. She explained that I developed normally cognitively and physically. Whenever I asked her a question, I always asked how my siblings were compared to me (I have an older brother, and an older sister). For the most part we were all pretty similar in how we grew and developed. Some of the only differences between the three of us were: my sister starting crawling and walking earlier than my brother and I, and all of our sleeping patterns were different at some point. I was told that for the first year I was sleeping great. My mom does not recall any really troubling times where I just wouldn’t sleep. But, she does remember when we moved back to her original hometown that my sleeping schedule got disrupted. At the time I had to stay with my grandma while my mom was back in the town I was born in (Davenport) packing up our things, and getting everything finalized with our move. We were talking about a couple reasons as to why there were complications. The obvious reason was that I was put in a whole different environment, without my own mother there to comfort me at such a young age. Another reason was that I was without my brother and sister. My mom had told me that when I was born they both took on the older sibling role really quick. She said they always wanted to take care of me or be around me. I didn’t have the same nurturers as I was used to. My mom said she had a rough time trying to get my sister on a good sleeping schedule. She explained that every night was different. They didn’t know if she was going to sleep well through the night or even how long. But, my brother got into a great sleeping schedule almost right away. I think it’s interesting to know how my siblings and I differed in that area. We also talked about adapting to new environments and situations. She said that I was different from my siblings when I became a toddler. A few examples are: I adapted to going to school better, I wasn’t as shy around adults or groups of people, and I was better around younger kids my age or a little older. When I thought about why this could be, I came to the conclusion that I grew up with older siblings, and because we moved back to my mom’s hometown (Pocahontas), I was always around my older cousins as well, so I was used to having to be in new environments. I was able to learn at a young age how to be in uncomfortable situations and still be mentally aware and present. When we were talking about if I had gone through any separation anxiety or attachment issues, she told me that I had never experienced it up until I was about 7 years old. But even then it was a really serious issue. I remember just going everywhere with her because my siblings were all older and doing their own things, so I was alone a lot more than I was used to. Once I got older and into my own activities it diminished away. I thought this assignment was really interesting because I had never really talked to my mom about when I was born and how I developed. Even though my mom wasn’t able to recall everything I had asked her, she was able to tell me quite a bit about what she did know; and she was able to think deeper into it and how and why I developed the way I did. I learned a lot, not only about me, but about my siblings as well.

Psychology Terms: Cognitive development, separation anxiety

My parents being separated for a long time. I lived with my mom until I’m turning eight my mom left the country and came to the United States, so from that time forward I lived with my grandmother. After five years long, my grandmother and I came here to live with my mom. My mom left me when I was little, so when I got to see her again she seem to be a stranger to me. I still remember the day my family took her to the airport, I did not shed a single tear when she left. I was having a hard time growing up because my parents was not there. By the time I am growing up and had my first period, and my first pimple my mom was not there. I remembered as my grandmother keeps telling me about how I was like as a baby, I can consider myself as an avoidant child. When my aunt took me to the zoo, I asked her where my mom was, she said my mom is coming, and I just continue what I was doing at that moment and did not care if my mom was present or not. I tried to ask her some questions about my development process but she seems to not remember because she was not there for half of the time, and my grandmother is old she could not remember really well. However, my aunt happens to remember and able to answer all of the questions that I had. During the prenatal period, my mom was not happy for a long period of times. There were a several time she tried to commit suicide by trying to jump into the river, and took pills. And that explained why I do not smile or laugh a lot like other infants. My maturation was slower than other infants. I began to roll over when I was three months and began to walk when I was fourteen months. At 20 months old I started to call my mom by her name because that is how other family member call her, so I picked up from them. By the time I started kindergarten, I started to show some negative reaction but it only last for a couple days my aunt said. And that was all she can remember, I was sad that my mom did not remember all of these because when I was little my aunt was the one fed me, put me to sleep, and play with me.

I learned quite a bit about how I was as an infant and how I grew and developed over time. I talked to my mother, and she told me quite a bit about her pregnancy with me. She did not take any drugs or alcohol during those nine months. She had a huge craving for toast, however. I was originally supposed to be born on March 28th, 1996, but I was actually born April 5th, 1996. My mom went in for a normal check-up with her doctor, and the doctor informed her that she would be delivering me that day. I came out of the womb 11 pounds and 4 ounces. That is obviously way over the average newborn weight. As an infant, I was surrounded in an environment that stimulated me. There were always books around for me to look at, which I loved doing at about 8 months old. I was pretty content as a newborn. I never appeared to be in any distress, so I basically had an avoidant attachment as a newborn. However, I developed a more secure attachment with my parents as I reached 12 months old. Some milestones included rolling over completely at 4 months old, which is slower than the average rate. I could sit up very well at about 5 months old, which is right at the average speed of most babies. At about 13 months old, I could walk without assistance. Overall, I developed at a nice rate, both physically and emotionally. A particularly interesting fact about myself as a baby was that I would always stare up at something when I would lie down in my crib. This proves that I was visually-sensitive. I also went through the stages of cognitive development pretty normally, if not at a fairly quick rate. Overall, I developed as an infant fairly normally. I was interested in stimulation, like books and toys, and my cognitive development skills accelerated.

For this assignment I interviewed my mom and my dad both. My mom was in labor for about 6 hours. She said it was easy giving labor for her and the next couple kids got even easier. As an infant i was easy most of the time. As a baby I would not take a pacifier for the life of me. They said they tried every brand that they could find but i didn't like anything. That was one of the hardest parts for them because when it was bed time i would cry and cry and cry. I did this because i wanted to be with them and sleep with them. My dad said my mom always gave in so eventually he had to make her sleep in the spare bed room in the basement so she wouldn't give in to me and i would learn to cry myself to sleep. They said that since i was the first child they recorded and document everything. I am the only kid in our family that has a full baby book. The first word that i said was “dada.” My dad told me that he felt pretty special that, that was my first word. They both said that they we lucky that when i first walked that happened to have video camera rolling and they got it on tape. As a child they called me a shadow from the minute I could walk. I always wanted to be right next to my parents no matter what they were doing. I wouldn't wander away or down the side walk because i wanted to be close to them. Hearing this was kind of funny because I am the same way today. I always like being around my parents when they are home. As i grew older and they had my brother they said i was very active and took interest with him. that continued on to my sister. I was 9 years old when my parents divorced and that took a toll on me. When they split up i became a parent to my brother and sister. I always took care of them and made sure they had what they needed. At my dads i was able to relax more but at my moms i ended up being a parent of my parent. I was a constant person in my siblings life that took care of them. They would turn to me for things that they would normally turn to a mom to because i was a mother figure for them. I parents said that after they divorced i skipped the “kid” stage and grew up and matured really quickly. I didn't do what they other kids did like playing outside, I didn't laugh at the same things they did because i didn't think they were funny and that they were immature. I became a responsible little adult. My childhood was mostly happy until i became a parent but i would do it over again in a heartbeat if i had to because i love my siblings like they were my own kids.
I loved talking to my parents about when i was a child because it sprouted so many stories that i did not know about, like the time i ate bird poop because they could not stop me faster enough. So far this has been my favorite assignment hands down.
Terms: labor, infant, divorced, stage, matured, childhood

Well, first off my mother had to reiterate the fact that I was the hardest of all her kids on her body. I had extremely wide shoulder and actually when I was born I broke my collar bone on the way out. After talking to her about my early childhood I learned some interesting things. She said I was smarter than other babies in the sense that I learned faster than others of my age such as starting to walk at 10 months and learning how to speak earlier also. However, I did learn another interesting aspect of my early childhood. She said I was very quiet around people whom I did not know. This is interesting because I have yet to grow out of that. I still find myself to be a very quiet person around people I do not know yet. My mother said that I was easy to take care of because I wasn't too crabby. I kind of just went with the flow and let things happen without a fuss. I would attribute my behavior as a child to would be of the secure attachment type. I was fine as long as my attachment figure was around. This changed as I got older she told me. Around 5 or 6, I began to become more fussy over trivial things although this usually came from things that my brother did. During the preoperational stage of my life, my mother recalled me being obsessed with pretending sticks are weapons. I would find sticks that looked like guns or swords and pretend to use them against imaginary foes. This coincides with the books definition of this period in time in which we begin to think symbolically about objects rather than operationally.
Once we hit the topic of my adolescence it became obvious that I was a normal teenager. I wanted to be by myself and hang out with my friends and all that good stuff. I was never really rebellious though, I think my brother took both our shares of rebellion. This is the time I really came into the age of reason. This is the period that I decided to become an agnostic for various reasons that I thought out deeply. This decision among others stayed with me through preconventional, conventional and postconventonal stages of moral reasoning.
I learned a lot from this talk with my mother about my development looking through the eyes of development psychology. I now know why the things I did happened and how I did them. I also learned a lot in the terms of I was not different from other kids, I just didn't know the science behind the things that were going on. Now that I know, I feel like I can see that actions of younger people in a new perspective that stems from my knowledge of this development psychology.

Terms: Secure attachment, attachment figure, preoperational, preconventional, conventional, postconventional, development psychology, psychology

For this assignment I interviewed my mom. I asked her questions about her pregnancy with me and after birth things; such as my early childhood experiences, that I do not remember. My mom told me that her pregnancy was pretty good until she was giving birth. It took over 24 hours for her to give birth to me. Given that it took so long I was taken on life flight from Webster City, Iowa to Des Moines, because I wasn’t breathing very well. I was pretty tall for a newborn being 21 and ¾ inches tall and weighed almost 9 lbs. I weighed exactly 8 lbs. 14 oz. Within months doctors noticed my legs were extremely bowed and wanted my mom to have boots and braces on them so they would straighten out. They said that this would help because I might have problems later in life. She refused to do this and I currently do not have or have had problems because of my bowed legs. My first word was “Mom”. Growing up on a farm my mom told me that I was always getting into trouble and wandering around. I was a little dare devil. One time she told me I started to climb up a wet slide and fell and split my chin open. I would also like to climb fences and play in the dirt like typical young boys. She told me I had a great connection with my dogs. That is one of my first actual memories is with my dogs. She would make me lay on the couch with my 200 lbs. dog and take naps with him while her and my dad were out mowing. She also told me I loved to be outdoors and I think that has made me into part of the person I am today. I would rather be outdoors and doing something rather than inside doing nothing. That being part of who I am she would take me outside and introduce me to different sports. Those would be baseball, football, and other outdoor activities. Her getting me involved in sports got me to do many of them in school. Her and my dad got me to wrestle almost as soon after I could walk she told me I started wrestling when I was 3 years old. All of the things my mom got me to do and everything she has done for me has turned me into the person I am today.

For this assignment, I decided to interview my mom. I have always been closer to my mother than father, even though I am very close to my father. According to my mother, she went through a pretty normal pregnancy except for the fact that she had to get a Cesarean section. She has had to get four C-sections for in total since she has two sons and two daughters. As an infant I had to give up breast feeding really early compared to other babies since I was damaging the tissue around my mother’s nipple. Also throughout my childhood, I grew up as a brat. My mother describes me crying over everything and due to the fact that my parents were not able to get me to stop they ended up giving into my tantrum. In addition, my first word was “Fry Fry.” Apparently I had an obsession with McDonald’s, which is something that I am not proud of whatsoever. As I grew older, I was considered a wimp, for I would never stand up for myself. I was a tad smaller than the other kids in my elementary school, but had a passion for the game of soccer. My father loves soccer and that was the main way we would bond together. I was a lot better than the other kids at soccer and it did not matter whether I was smaller or bigger than the other kids. Every now and then we have a family night where we reminisce on the past and watch home videos of soccer games, birthday parties, holiday’s, etc. I slowly developed as an individual throughout the years, and was very glad once high school came along because I no longer had to deal with my fat self. I had lost a lot of weight, slimmed done, and was skinny. Throughout my whole life my parent’s were very religious and strict when it came to certain holiday’s like Halloween, as well as curfew, but I never had a problem with my parents, for I would respect them. Throughout high school I was strongly involved in soccer and it had taken over my life, I would play year round and it always saddened me that my parent’s did not have time to watch my games, for they would be busy working around the times I played, or would be too busy taking care of my younger siblings. All in all, I love my parents for everything they have done for me and am blessed that they are happily married.

As I was going through the assignment and saw I had to interview someone, I knew right away who I was going to interview, my mom. My mother and father have a very interesting story about their first experience with giving birth. It just so happens that I have a twin brother, which is extremely cool. My brother and I were not just an instant wish come true, my parents had problems at first being able to have children. Eventually, they were able to get pregnant with us and couldn’t be more excited to have twins. The doctor told my parents that my brother and I would be expected to be born around the first week of November. The day of October 18 disagreed with that statement. We were born on that day. My brother was born first with a weight of 5 pounds and 9 hours later I was born weighing in at 3 ½ pounds. You would think that since my brother was bigger he would have been healthier, but that was not the case. When my brother was born he was put into an incubator in order to develop his lungs more. My mom told me that the doctor’s explanation was that since my brother was bigger, I had to fight harder to get the vital food and nutrients just as we both needed. Fighting harder had made me stronger than my brother, therefore, I was the healthier baby. My brother eventually became very healthy as well. We were brought home as very healthy babies and my parents were very happy. According to my mother, we were both very happy babies and loved getting held by different people. We were always the center of attention wherever my parents went and babbled constantly. As babies, we both developed good motor skills relatively fast. I started walking slightly before my brother, but both of us eventually became very exceptional walkers for children our age. As we got older, my parents said we both became slightly mischievous. We would always try to escape out of our cribs and roll ourselves in our wheeled toys toward the direction of the stairs. Upon the preschool years, my brother and I started becoming different types of kids. My parents claim that I was very talkative and kind and my brother was naughty and sneaky. This is still the case today! As elementary school approached, my brother and I were on a different level intellectually. My brother was in reading programs to help him catch up while I was placed in the advanced section. Eventually my brother and I both reached the same level of intelligence though. We we’re both in the same activities and sports in school, but we did have different friends. The nature we were around influenced who we are today and that is probably why we are different. There was a lot from this chapter that related to my brother’s life and mine from birth all the way to adolescence. The thing that matched up the most with the chapter was the developmental process. I thought it was very interesting how my brother and I are twins, but many things were different for us. I developed more quickly in some area, and he developed more quickly in some areas than myself. I thought the nurture aspect of the chapter was very interesting because it related to my brother and I very much. Our environments were similar, which is why he had some things in common, and we were in different environments when we were with different people resulting in differences between us.
Terms: babbling, nurture, motor skills

For this assignment, I contacted my mother. My mom was my primary care giver. My brothers and I never went to a babysitter or to a daycare, so I had the full advantage of always being around one of my parents. My dad is a farmer, so he was around most of the time. However, during planting and harvesting season, he was rarely in the house.

I was the first child to my parents. I asked my mom how her pregnancy was and how she felt throughout the nine months. To my surprise, she suffered from the morning sickness throughout the whole pregnancy. I was born about 2 weeks early than my original due date. Today, being born two weeks early doesn’t mean that I was a sick baby. Babies that are only 22 weeks can now survive outside of the womb. One of her cravings that found to be quite interesting was that she was obsessed with eating bananas and peanut butter. It’s funny because I cannot stand the taste or the thought of bananas today!

From talking to my mom, I learned that I could roll from my tummy to my back within five months. I could sit upward with no support within eight months. By my first birthday, I was walking around my house. My first word was dada (Dad), which first came about within six months.

From looking at the chart in the book, I can tell I was a behind. The babies in the book could rolled over a lot quicker than what I did. I was also a couple months behind in walking. In the book, the babies were walking at nine months. It took me an additional three months to start walking.

I never suffered from separation anxiety. I was always constantly around my parents or at least my mom, but I never had a fit when I was away from them. Also this probably happened because I was the first child. I was also the first grandchild on both sides of my family, so that really didn’t help either! Literally, I never really had anyone to look up to.

Doing this assignment made me realize how great it is to have a baby! It was also very interesting to find out when I did my “Firsts”.

For this assignment I decided to interview my mother. After all, it wasn’t my dad who carried me around in the womb for 9 months. I asked her some of the basics such as, “Did you drink or do drugs?”. Thankfully the answer was no. According to my mother the pregnancy was a very smooth and easy one, especially when compared to my younger sisters. She took prenatal vitamins to make sure I was getting all of my essential nutrients and vitamins such as folic acid so that I was not born with spina bifida. As I stated earlier she did not drink alcohol or do drugs, so no teratogens ever entered her system. The worst thing she did was have a Diet Coke every now and then. As far as I’m concerned though that’s not bad, since they were usually caffeine free. On the off chance she did have a Diet Coke with caffeine in it, it was rare and not near often enough to cause a miscarriage or low birth weight. When I was born I weighed 8 pounds and 14 ounces, so obviously that Diet Coke didn’t do me too much harm. However it did take me awhile to come out. She went into labor at 7 a.m. and I was not born until around 5 or 6 p.m. In fact, I was so stubborn in not wanting to come out that the doctors wanted to use a suction cup on my head, but my mother refused. About 3 weeks to a month later an abnormal lump formed on top of my skull. The doctors could not figure out what it was, so my parents opted to have it removed. To this day I have a dent in my skull and a scar on top of my head. I like to give them crap and tell them it was just extra brain and that I could have been the next Albert Einstein. As a baby I was usually happy, unless I didn’t get my way. If that was the case then I would throw a very large temper tantrum, although this is not uncommon. I slept fairly well but could have slept better. I woke up at the same time every night crying to be fed. My mom said that at either 5 and a half or 6 months I said my first word, this coincides with what the book says is normal. At 11 months I was able to walk on my own. So in this manner I was slightly ahead of the norm that figure 4.10 of the book shows. When I started preschool I had very bad separation anxiety, but it only lasted for the first 3 days. Each of those days I cried, but each day it was far less than the day before. By day 4 there were no tears. My mother believes that I was and still am of the Secure attachment style.
In the end much of the stuff I learned from the reading relates directly to my life as an infant. It was very interesting interviewing my mother and learning these things, it may come in very useful further on down the road. Not to mention that when you are able to connect reading from the textbook with your own real life experience it makes it much more interesting and easier to learn.
Key Terms: Womb, Prenatal, Teratogens, Spina Bifida, Caffeine, Miscarriage, Separation Anxiety, Secure Attachment

When talking to my family about raising me, they all had special moments and memories with me growing up. The one out of all my family that really raised me the most out of all of them would be my sister Kelly. I was a premature baby when my mother had adopted me in Avion Park, Florida. Initially when my mother brought me home, my sister Kelly was one of the first to lay eyes on me, and at first she wasn't exactly but more surprised. My mother failed to inform my family about my adoption, so it was really an impulse decision on my mother's part. I talked to Kelly because she was basically my mother throughout my childhood. My actual mother was busy with working in Boston, Massachusetts so she was not home very often during that time. I asked Kelly what it was like for her raising me, and she told me that it was not easy, because she was only 13 at the time of my arrival. She had to grow up pretty quick for me, and that was definitely a challenge. I was right about my assumption on being a secure attachment type of child, I would be distressed when she wasn't watching over me and would be really happy to see her when she returned. I wasn't overly stressed when she left, but I was a little worrisome if she did not return for a long period of time. I was quite an emotional child it turns out, I would cry very easily if I was scared or upset, but Kelly did not always know why I would cry, it would sometimes be random. When I was growing up, my sister could definitely could see potential in my creativeness when I was about 5 or 6 years old, around the preoperational stage of a child. I would love to draw and play with whatever I could use to my imagination. I was a really decent drawer at that age, and would come up with creative ways around things if I didn't want to do something or wanted something to work how I wanted it to. One example that she could think of was when I acquired this parachute toy as a kid, but was worried about it going to high and getting caught in a fan, so I found this little folded piece of paper to keep the parachute weighted and it wouldn't fly too high into the fan. I would babble when I was around 1 or 2 Telegraphic speech started when I was around 3 or 4, I would make plenty of grammatical errors, but I got my point across. When I was up until the point I was around 13 years old, I had been a very emotional child. I would get very angry about things and they were the most unbelievably smallest little things. I fought with my caregivers, and would twist their words around. I would cause the fights most of the time. After age 13, for some reason, that I can't even really remember myself, I began changing my outlook. I became less emotional, and instead of constantly annoying my sister Kelly, I would be just fine without much guidance. The most awkward part of me growing up was hitting puberty. I have 3 sisters, one mother, and one brother. My sister had to talk to me about safe sex and what was happening to me as I was maturing. It was hard for her to get the right words out because she was a female, she really could not understand what I was really going through. My brother lived in Florida while I was a teenager in Iowa, so I really had no male figure to talk to about me growing up. I had to learn for myself and from some of my friends about being a male. I would observe my friends to understand my manly side, and my mother and sisters taught me about the feminine side of the world. I have a pretty solid relationship with girls when I first with them because I know exactly how to interact with them without seeming like a smug kind of guy. Even though I never had a father figure throughout my life, I did have good friends and older idols to look up to. I am doing great currently in life, I made it through one of the tough points in my life which was the adolescence years. After years of growing, I have made it to the point where I have a pretty good understanding of my life and who I am becoming. After talking with my sister, I know I was one of the fortunate kids in the world to have a strong supportive family that helped me become the young respectful man I am today.

In my family I am the third child, the last child, and the only female. When my mom was pregnant with me she said that her “tummy” (yes, still uses tummy) grew faster with my than it did with my two brothers and as did her breast size. She then, in a rather exaggerated voice, told me how she had to wear a size F bra. She couldn’t remember a lot of details about her pregnancy with me because she was taking care of a three or four year old, a one year old and also going to work as an Elementary School Art teacher. She remembers having morning sickness for the first two to three months and also not being able to stand the smell of cooking meat (she would usually get sick when smelling cooking meat too). I asked her about folic acid and she said that wasn’t ever a problem for her. However, diabetes runs in my family, so she did have to go in and take a glucose test for diabetes. I also, of course, asked about cravings and there were none that she could remember.
At this point she had gone down stairs and grabbed my baby book. By the time she had gotten everything together for the babysitter, called my godmother and made it to the hospital by midnight. I was born 3 A.M. at December 31, 1995 at 8 pounds 23 ounces, 20 ½ inches and a head full of dark hair. I asked my mom then how things went after birth. The first thing she said is something that would probably be inappropriate for me to repeat here but, the edited version is, “None of my babies slept very well at night.” (And guess what? We still don’t!) After that she told me a few developmental things. I was able to know who Mom and Dad (caretakers) were right away. At one week, I was able to hold my head up by myself. At two weeks I had apparently discovered hands and at three I would smile at you when tickled. At two months I had began to babble and I apparently LOVED to do that. At three to five months I began getting louder with the babbling and I also loved being tossed into the air. At five months I would “reel people in” and it would ALWAYS work on Daddy. She didn’t have much after that other than that I was a sweet baby who didn’t cry much.
And I know as I grew up my mom had to deal with a lot from me. I was the black sheep in the family. I didn’t really fit in anywhere and I wasn’t super amazing at school. These last few years have been really important in me developing my own gender identity, finding my sexuality, and a certain “clique” of friends. I’ve gone through three years of therapy and some pretty dumb things yet somehow my mom still managed to raise this grumpy teenager.
Key Terms: folic acid, diabetes, pregnancy, developmental, caretakers, discovered, babbling, gender identity, sexuality, clique, therapy

For this assignment, I interviewed my mother. The first thing she told me was when she was holding me in the hospital, I kicked her in the face and gave her a bloody nose. I guess my infant self wanted to test out my motor skills. She also told me that my labor was almost induced, because I was a few days past her due date, which might've been why I was a chubby 9 lb. baby. While pregnant, she informed me that she avoided any fish or seafood and was paranoid about her meat being cooked thoroughly. Sometimes the smell of chicken made her sick. She was also one of "those" mothers who believed listening to Mozart would make a baby smarter. My mother claimed that it "sort of, kind of" worked.

I asked her what I was like later on. She told me that I was very, very good. I rarely ever cried, and when I was a toddler, I rarely acted up. She told me she only remembers putting me in time out once and never spanked me, and I only had one large meltdown in the grocery store. However, I might've scribbled on the walls two or three times. She told me of a moment when I was about three and I was on my beanie-bag chair. She told me not to move my bottom off of the chair until she came back from the kitchen. My dad was in the same room, trying to nap with the TV on. She came back, and I was four feet closer to the TV than I was before. My dad said, "Well, she didn't take her bottom off of it!" and she told me that I had scooted across the floor. I think that's pretty inventive for a toddler.

From what she told me, it sounds like a had a very normal (almost uninteresting since I rarely acted up) childhood. I sounded like a very happy, passive child. She commented that I caught onto things quickly and was smart for my age. I started crawling, walking, and got potty-trained at about the right ages, so I'd like to think I developed as any average middle class American child did.

I chose my mom for this assignment because she has always been with me. My father has too, but I was thinking my mom would remember more of the minor details. During pregnancy my mother suffered bad heartburn. She had two kids before me, and she suffered heartburn for them too. My mother does not smoke and she isn’t a heavy drinker, so I was lucky to have had a safe life throughout the germinal, embryonic, and fetal periods. Compared to my older to brothers I was an ‘easy’ birth. My first brother’s birth took almost 27 hours to do. Mine only took about four hours. The doctors checked me out and told my mom I was a healthy girl who was 7 pounds 2 ounces and 21 inches long. I was my parents’ first girl and they were thrilled. I was a very good baby because I didn’t cry as bad as my older brothers did. During my sensorimotor stage, my mom said I could recognize her first right away. That every time I saw her I either stopped crying or I smiled, which just melted her heart. When I saw my brother Kyle though, I would get sad because he would always be loud around me and I didn’t like that apparently.
A couple of month later, I started to learn how to crawl and soon after that to roll over. I was in the maturation stage of my life. My mom isn’t quite sure how old I was when I started to this, but she knew it was only a few months after I was born. My first word came a couple months after this. Apparently I mumbled a lot and I babbled, but my first official word was ball. After a while I would say ‘my ball’ and ‘get ball’. That shows that I was in telegraphic stage because I was saying phrases but not using all the words in the sentence. I was very attached to my mom. I always needed her by me, which means that I was a secure attachment child. I always cried when I was left alone and she always needed to come back to hold me to make me feel better.
She had also mentioned that I learned how to walk before my brothers did. She said it was so simple to get my on my feet and I was very eager and curious about the world around me. I loved touching things and walking over to dogs, for example, and stare at them until they did something. She said that when I got older the little things fascinated me. During my preoperational stage, I was curious about how things work, even though I can’t fathom the outcome. For example, we had this toy that I’m sure many kids had, which was where it had a triangle cut out, a circle cut out, and a square cut out. There was a triangle piece, a circle piece, and a square piece that fit into the cut-outs. My mom said I loved that game even though at first I could not understand how to properly use it. I would try so hard to place the square piece into the circle cut-out because the circle piece fit so well into the circle cut out place. My mom would have to help me understand by putting the square piece into the square cut out. After a couple times I finally got the hang of it, but she said it was so funny watch my confusion. Once I could do it no worries I started to do other things like organize my toys into color and size. I think at that part of my life I was entering my formal operational stage.
I loved talking about this to my mom because I could hear the excitement she had talking about my first word or the joy she had when I would smile at her as a baby.

Key Terms: maturation, babbled, secure attachment, telegraphic stage, sensorimotor stage, preoperational, and formal operational stage.

Without any second thought at all, I decided that my mother would be the perfect person to interview for this assignment. I chose her because for several years after I was born, she was all I had and I know that she had always considered me her miracle baby. I am in fact my mother’s only child and I know that she had tried for years to have a baby with my father. After years of trying, my dad eventually left. But little did he know that I was about to enter this world. My mother said she was always happy that she was pregnant with me. She said she never had any problems while being pregnant either. But what did happen was that her body, during the actual delivery period, grew very weak and fragile. She struggled with herself and contractions were very painful. While in the hospital she decided to have a C-Section. She knew that she could not handle the pain so she immediately requested an epidural. Once she was giving birth, she was asleep. She eventually woke up and saw me being held in front of her by the doctor. At first, she said, she thought she was going to receive another baby before, but it ended up being the woman in the room next to hers. But eventually the doctor handed me over to her and her life was about to change.
Once I was born my mother said I was a small baby and only weighed 5lbs and 3 ounces. As I grew she would come to remember a lot of milestones in my life. Her favorite was the time that I had learned to walk. She said I was only 13 months when I had learned to walk. She said she was very amazed at this sight because a friend of hers that had a baby that was older than me, still hadn’t learned to walk yet.
As time passed my mother raised me by herself until I was about seven years old. During this time, she raised me well and raised me to be respectful of my friends, family and surroundings. Growing up, my mother said that she never had problems with me breaking things, writing on the walls, screaming, crying, and she also said that there were no terrible two’s. She raised me all by herself and never had a single problem.
Overall, I thought the interview went very well. I learned that my mother put forth so much more effort than she takes credit for. She has always been there for me and always will. She is the reason why I am where I am today. I learned that her pregnancy time period and her time of raising me was much easier than that of her friends. I now know that pregnancy is very different for different people. I guess you could say that my mother just happened to have lucked out. Without question, I learned that my mother raised me well enough for me to succeed and raised me with the highest respect for me, herself and everyone that I work and learn with.

For this interview I talked to my mom. I asked her about my development and to tell me anything interesting that she remembers. My mom mainly focused on the fact that my twin sister and I are In Vitro babies, which means we were made in a test tube and then put into my mom, basically. My mom told me about her and my dad tried to get pregnant for years, so when it finally happened they were overjoyed. My mom discussed how protective she was when we were younger, and how she always wanted to take us places and do things with us. I began trying to formulate words before my sister my mom said, this was my telegraphic stage because I wasn't fully speaking. My mom said that I started to walk and talk at the right ages, but I was probably about a year behind on potty-training. Apparently, I never crawled, I scooted around on my butt. My mom said that they would laugh about it all the time and they thought it was probably because I was too top heavy from my big head. When I got to the age of five, I began kindergarten, and my mom said from this age to about ten they had to cut my shirts to get them over my head because my head was too big compared to the rest of my body. That was embarrassing to hear, but I've grown into my head, so I'm happy with it now. I went through puberty around the age of thirteen, and my feet began to grow quickly. When I was fifteen, I had size fourteen shoes and I was about five feet, eight inches. I'm glad that I've grown to be slightly over six feet tall now. Through elementary and middle school, I didn't want to be seen with my parents going to school because it felt lame, but by the time I was in high school, I didn't care much. Growing up, I did the things most boys in society do, I played sports, played video games, hung out with friends, took advantage of my metabolism in high school, and pulled all kinds of shenanigans. I didn't know I was an In Vitro baby until just last year, and it doesn't mean much to me because it had nothing to do with my development. I enjoyed the chance to discuss my development with my mom, although she probably enjoyed it more.

Key terms: Development, pregnancy, telegraphic stage, In Vitro, metabolism, puberty

When talking to my mother about me as a child, she say that me and my sister were a lot alike as children. Which I thought that was pretty interesting. She was I was a very calm and sweet child. She says that she does not remember my first word for sure but she thinks it was, “NO”. Which I thought that was actually pretty funny. That is still one of my favorite words to this day. My mother also informed me that I really didn’t talk much as a child. Which is actually kind of surprising now since now I really don’t shut up. My brother is fifteen years older than me and my sister is ten years older than me. So growing up I was the pride and joy, so basically I could just point to anything and they would get it for me. I really didn’t need to talk. So I ended up having to go to a speech therapist, to kind of help me talk because I also stuttered a lot as well. My mom also told me that when I was a going off to preschool, most of the kids would be crying because they didn’t want to leave their mom. But I just ran off because I wanted to play with all the other kids, but then I ended up crying because I ran so fast I tripped and skinned my knee. In the childhood phase of Erikson’s eight stages of development my mom told me that I was always good with other children. Even as a child I was very social, the most problem that she had with me was getting me to leave and go home. One thing my mom did tell me is that I am more concerned about certain things than my brother and sister were. Like in the formal operational stage you are supposed to be concerned with the future, that is normal. I would kind of have mini breakdowns. Which actually still happens to me sometimes.

For this assignment I decided to interview my mother since she was my primary caregiver. My mom told me a lot of things that I actually was not aware of and was in shock to actually hear. My mother had a daughter before me which her and I are actually only 16 months apart. It was tough raising two young children so close in age. Especially since she was a single mother. She actually did not know that she was pregnant with me until she went to the hospital and found out that she had pneumonia. She did not take prenatal pills and didn't think that she handled the pregnancy as well as she should have with staying up on her vitamins and eating foods with enough folic acid.She didn't know what to do and she wanted to hide her pregnancy as long as she could away from her grandfather. Even while going into labor with me she did not know if I was a boy or a girl at the time. While giving birth she said that there was no complications that she could remember besides the fact that she was in labor for 9 hours.

After being born I started walking pretty early and then my mother told me that one day I just couldn't walk anymore. She took me to the hospital and they diagnosed me with junior rheumatoid arthritis. I was not able to walk again until I was 3 years old. She said she thought I would never be able to walk again let alone run. So it amazes her that I play basketball and capable of being the fastest one on the court.

I would always get into trouble when she brought me to daycare and my sister and I was like night and day. My mother thought this to be because I didn't get enough attention from her and my step dad so I would try to get it in a negative way. I was always competitive and wanted to be first in everything I did. My mother was actually worried about me because she thought I acted like a "boy" too much. I played football and was the only girl on the park board team and then I played basketball all my life and still am today. I was a tomboy.

Doing this interview I learned a lot that I did not know before. Its surprising that she didn't know that she was pregnant and didn't know what she was having until I came out and didn't even have a name picked out. I am glad I did this interview because now I know how tough it was for her being a single mom trying to juggle two jobs and still raise children. I turned out fine even though my mom says she would do things different with us.

I think that my development doesn't really match with the chapter that I read because my mother did not do any of the things that you are suppose to do to have a healthy pregnancy and for the child to develop well. I do agree with the part about giving children attention. I think I was more of a problem child because of the lack of attention I received at home. This assignment helped me because I know if I do everything right and the healthy way my children will come out even better than I am!

What I learned from interviewing my mother was that I was a difficult child; not because I would cry or wake up every two hours, but because I was too curious and smart for my own good. My mother said that I was generally a good baby and that I did sleep through the night, but I was easily fascinated by things that I did not know or understand, so I would do everything possible to explore them and figure them out. She said that most major milestones such as sleeping through the night, crawling, and walking, I did before most babies my age, and that I even had to be “promoted” to a regular bed before I turned one, because I would crawl out of my crib and sneak into my living room to sleep. Apparently I did not really care or notice when she or any other caregiver left, so I assume that I was an avoidantly attached toddler. She also mentioned that her experience with my upbringing was challenging, because after I turned one, I refused to take naps. I also knew if people skipped words or pages when they read to me, which was really one of the few things that made me upset. Like a typical toddler, my comfort items included a blankie or one of my hundreds of stuffed animals. Also like the typical toddler, my first word was “da-da”. Unlike the typical toddler, I began speaking understandably at around six months; that’s usually when babies start the babbling stage. While the average toddler begins walking at 12.1 months, I began at around 10.5. After learning about my younger self and after reading this chapter, I began to think about Erikson’s Eight Stages of Psychosocial Development and if I would have resolved any crises younger than most. Because of my high curiosity and adventurous spirit, it seems like I managed to successfully resolve the crisis of autonomy versus shame and doubt a lot younger than the average age of two to three; my mother made it seem like I was always very sure of myself and my actions, and since I did not seem to really care when a caregiver left, my independence and self-esteem were probably very present. I am guessing I resolved this crisis, based on my mother’s words, at about one and a half. I also began thinking about how I never got separation anxiety as a baby or toddler, like the book suggests. Instead, I had two very serious cases of separation anxiety when I was in the second grade and the fourth or fifth grade. This made me wonder if my lack of it as a toddler had anything to do with why it happened so late in my childhood. My mother also mentioned how I reached every major milestone before my older sister. Originally, I thought that that might be because we were just very different as children, as we are very different today, but then I thought that maybe I reached those milestones sooner because of her. Until I was born, she was an only child, so she really only had adults to compare to. When I was born, there was someone that was closer to my age around, so maybe I walked and talked earlier than her because I wanted to keep up with her. Overall, this interview helped me learn more about my development and behaviors as a baby/toddler. It also has made me think a lot about what factors could have affected my upbringing.
Terms: avoidant attachment, babbling, Eight Stages of Psychosocial Development, autonomy versus shame and doubt, separation anxiety, development

I interviewed my Mom for this assignment and the first thing that we talked about was the pregnancy. My mom said she ate a lot of food with folic acid and she said she felt healthy throughout the whole pregnancy. She said that she also walked regularly, and slept a lot and only worked part time and a desk job. During the birth she was 2 weeks overdue and she said her hormones were insanely crazy and did things that she would never normally do. Many of these didn’t surprise me because I know we talked about these topics earlier in my life so I wasn’t to astonished to hear these things. The thing that surprised me the most was my child developement. She said that my attachment was somewhere in between avoidant and secure. This surprised me because I felt that I would have had just secure because I have a super close relationship with my mom, but she said that I was very independent and never once cried when she left me places. That was just interesting to me because she was a single mom and was the only person that I knew. As I grew up she said that cognitively I was advanced. She said that I talked before most other kids and was pretty advanced in my thinking as a child. She says that it may have happened because constantly talked to be all the time. She would always tell me what we were going to do and why we did. For example she would say “You are going to have to take a bath because you have to get clean”, and then during the bath would tell me why we use shampoo. This was interesting to me because I never thought that my mom impacted me like that and I think I still had a sense of thinking like that today. My daycare providers were very impressed with my cognitive skills as a young child. Apparently when I was young I had a best friend who’s parents were deaf and he could barely talk, so I would sign with him and play with him. This was shocking to me because I have no recollection of this happening, but my mom said that we played all the time. Next we talked about how my motor skills developed and she said they were very normal and really didn’t have much to say about it because it was just normal. As I kept growing up she tried to let me be very independent and do things by myself, like picking out my dinner or my clothes for the day. She said she wanted me to be the person that I wanted to be so she tried to let me be who I wanted to be. She said I grew up to be really caring and was very social at daycare. I think this was because of her, and I learned that skill from her. She said generally I was a very good child and I was very easy to take care of, and nevered cried. I feel like a lot of these things transfer into my life now. I was just mostly surprised because I never thought about the way my cognitive skills had developed and now I can kind of gauge how all of it played out.

Most of my questions were about my life before I was making memories. I can remember quite a few things from about the age of 3, but I have no idea what I was like before that. Even my memories of myself from 3-10 are a little bit fuzzy, but I was still most curious about my earliest life. I learned from my parents that I was an easy child to handle. I enjoyed my daily naps, of which I would take two, and rarely complained about them. Neither of my siblings, both younger, were near as easy to coerce into napping or other generic baby activities. They liked to scream and cry. I doubt that I was actually as well behaved as they say, and I wonder if their memory of my youth was altered by the fact that I was the firstborn. This was about all of the information that I was able to get from my parents about raising me in the early stages of life. They have always said that I was really easy and that’s about it. They don’t really remember the first time I walked or lost a tooth. They do remember my first word though.

My first word was “ball”. I have no memory of this, but apparently all I liked as a kid was sports. My dad loves sports, so naturally he found all sorts of baby appropriate sports equipment for me to play with. I feel like “no” is currently one of the words I use most in my vocabulary right now, so it surprises me that I didn’t say “no” first. Here’s another fun thing I learned, apparently I had incredibly sensitive skin as a child and I bruised whenever anyone picked me up. My Mom took me to a doctor to see if there was something wrong, and the doctor was super worried that they were terrible parents. My parents are some of the most passive people I know, so this is really hilarious to me.

To find a more entertaining story of raising a child, I like to look at my brother. I have some memory of my brother as a small kid, (he was born when I was 6) but not enough to fill in all the blanks. Hearing my parents talk about him is much more fun anyways. My brother was terrible at dealing with motion of any sort. Until he was 5 years old, he vomited every time he rode in a car. It became a regular experience to bring a trash bag and a bucket with us everywhere we went. This included trips to school or to a grocery store or to literally anywhere that required using a car. My parents were super embarrassed about having to constantly clean up their puking child in public. I can only imagine how inconvenient it would be. I usually didn’t have to deal with any part except for the smell.

Long story short, I was very boring and typical, my brother was incredibly difficult.

For this assignment, I asked my mom, my main caregiver, about my birth and me growing up. Throughout my mom’s pregnancy she had morning sickness the whole term. She gained weight but also lost more weight than she gained. My mom went into labor with me at 3:00 in the morning and was in labor with me for 9 hours. I was born right on time at 6 lbs. 8 oz. I was feed formula for my first year of life. At about 3 months, I started to eat cereal and at about 6 months I started all different types of baby foods. At 6 months, my first tooth started to grow and I started crawling and sitting up. However I didn’t start walking until after a year old. As an infant, I slept all through the night. I wore diapers for year and 7 months and by 2 and a half years old I was fully potty trained.
Most of the stuff I asked my mom I already knew. My mom had fairly easy pregnancies. This didn’t really help me understand it better because I’m likely to have a totally different experience.

For this assignment I chose to talk to mostly my mom (my dad chimed in) because she was with me the most when I was a child. My dad drove truck for the first year of my life so he only came home about every two weeks. I asked her a variety of questions that related to my childhood, development, and styles of attachment. My moms experience with being pregnant with me was what she called “normal.” She had common symptoms of being pregnant such as morning sickness and fatigue. For the first three months of her pregnancy she could and would not eat much. Saltine crackers were all that satisfied her as she became sensitive to most other foods. Other than that most everything else went as planned: except for labor. My moms labor was hard and a total of thirty-four hours. When she told me that for the first time I asked her why she even thought of having another child, but my younger sisters birth went much more as planned. Once my parents brought me home they said it was a breeze. The first night I slept the entire time. I also never had my days and nights mixed up like most babies’ do. My mom said I was a “perfect” little baby. I hardly ever cried, but maybe that was because I was the first grandchild born in my family and was “spoiled rotten” as my dad would say. Just eight days after I was born my parents said I smiled for the first time and after that I smiled all the time. I guess I was a really happy baby. My first word was mom, which honestly that doesn’t surprise me considering how much I say mom now. As for sitting up I was around five months old. I then pulled myself up at the age of seven months. I walked around the age of one. All of these things line up to be almost exactly normal or average from what the book says. As for raising me, I was an only child for the first three years of my life. My mom said I was helpful in most ways especially when my sister came along. I was more than excited to have a new friend to play with that would be living in the same home as me. As for attachment styles I believe I showed signs of secure attachment. As for most infants that is the case. If there were one thing that I differed from secure attachment it would be I didn’t cry as much as most children when my parents left me. Other than that my parents claimed that I always wanted to go to school. I’m not really sure what happened there though. I asked them what were some of the bad things that I did when I was younger and all they could think of was I was kind of shy at first around other kids at school. I benefited from this assignment because I got to learn information about a small portion of my developmental psychology that I didn’t necessarily know before. I thought I would call and make it a sort of fast interview but we ended up talking for nearly an hour about all the stories in my childhood. I really enjoyed listening to all of the information my parents shared me with!

For this assignment, I decided to ask my mom because she has been my primary care giver my entire life. To start off I asked her questions about being pregnant with me, what I was like as a child, etc. She was able to give me a lot of information about all of my questions. She also informed me that I was a colicky baby and she did not enjoy that at all. She also informed me that I was a very busy baby, I would not sit still for more than two seconds, which is still true to this day. Besides that my mom said I was a normal kid speaking incomplete sentences and my first words were mama and dada. She did state that I had one favorite toy, which was my doll that I got from my grandparents. I took that and my blanket everywhere. My mother also informed me that she was very cautious with me because I was her first child and she did not want to mess anything up or to have anything go wrong. My mother also informed me that I would not sleep for the life of me and the only way they could get me to sleep was by putting me in my car seat and taking me for a ride, but the comical part is that I would know when the ride was over because I would wake up when they took me out of my car seat. She told me that many nights I would sleep in my car seat in their room. For this assignment I really enjoyed learning about what I was like when I was younger. Over all, this experience was nice learning about what I was like as a child and what it was like when my mother was pregnant with me. I asked her if I was behind with anything and she told me that I was right on with the milestones like I was supposed to be. My mother also told me that I never suffered from separation anxiety and she thinks this was because I was the first child and also the first grandchild so everyone always wanted to play with me and hold me. This assignment was very interesting to me to see what I was like as a baby and to see what some of my firsts were.

For my interview, I chose my grandmother who took care of me mostly as my parents worked 45 minutes away each and worked your typical 9 to 5 jobs. My grandma told me that my mother was sick everyday for 8 months and endured 38 hours of labor to get me into the world. These facts usually get brought up by mother when I do something bad or wrong even to this day! As like most babies, I was screaming my head off when I was born, and because I was the first child in my family to be born in 20 or so years, the entire family was in attendance.

As a baby, my grandma described me as a very happy and smiley baby. She claims that my “big blue eyes were always shining” and many people thought I was the “cutest baby they had ever seen” (horribly biased, but these are her words!). I always wanted to be held by someone. I had my favorites, but I was never scared to be held by a stranger and was just very lovable to anyone that wanted to hold me or play with me. As a young toddler, I sang ALL the time and tended to babble more than the average child. My grandma was not able to recall what my first words really were because I was always saying something that was not always clear. My memory was incredibly strong as a child, and by the age of four or five I had everyone’s (even the extended family member’s) birthdays memorized. I absolutely loved hot wheels, riding my tricycle, and reading. Even at an early age, I was rather independent and had to be discouraged by my family members to not run away and do my own thing. This discouragement did not always work as I was and still am quite headstrong when I am sure of myself. The only real health issues I had was I had an allergic reaction to the booster shots you are given and I broke out in the measles. I also caught the Rotavirus at the age of four. Other than that, I have been relatively healthy.

My grandma said I never cried because I had to leave for school. I had no separation anxiety, and loved being at school and everything that came with it. In school, I was always very active in class discussion and socializing with my classmates. I was rather competitive and wanted to be the best in everything. This was especially true with competing for attention with my younger brother. I always succeeded in getting the attention even as the older child because of my outgoing personality and according to my grandmother, my blue eyes help me catch the attention of many people. My grandma said that my attitude and personality has not really changed over the years, but I am a little bit more mouthy like a teenager. Although, she claims that I was never really afraid to voice my opinions and what I wanted to happen in a given situation!

When interviewing my mother I learned more about how I was as a child and how her experiences with me were. For starters she told me that during her pregnancy the only things she experienced that differed from my two older sisters was the fact that she constantly craved tacos and she had to have a C-section. I also asked her how my attitude was as a baby/toddler and she said I was a very happy adventurous kid. A story she shared with me was that when I was around 3 or 4 I would climb the window panes and get really high up and ask her if what I was doing was “dangerous?” She couldn’t really recall any first just the fact that she had to chase me down a lot and keep me from climbing things! All in all she said it has been quote on quote, “pure joy” raising me which she also laughed about after saying so I don’t know if it was or not but I enjoyed interviewing her and listening to the stories she had about me.

I interviewed my mom about her experiences with raising my twin sister and I. I learned a lot about being pregnant with twins. During my moms pregnancy it was hard for her to walk once we began to grow bigger and she had to be on bed rest for about two months before she gave birth. She also said that it was hard to sleep and that she didn’t sleep for around a year after she gave birth to us because we were terrible sleepers. I also learned that I was the calmer baby and was always happy.
During my childhood my mother had issues with taking us to the dentist and getting our pictures taken, apparently we would cry and throw a fit whenever we went to the dentist. Also during childhood my sister and I had our own language whenever we talked to each other, my mom said that we would be talking and my parents had no idea what we were saying but we would know what one of us was talking about.
Interviewing my mom about my childhood and her pregnancy was very interesting. I learned a lot about what she went through, especially since we were her first kids. I also learned a lot about my sister and I during our first few years that I do not remember. Some of things that my mom said are still true these days. For example I still do not like going to the dentist or getting my picture taken.
My experiences relate back to the chapter with how I changed as an infant. For example, babies are supposed to crawl and move around eight to twelve months and I began to walk around eleven months. I was also in the category of secure attachment, where I would never want to be apart from my sister or my parents whenever they would leave the room. Interviewing my mom was very entertaining to learn about what I was like during my childhood.

I really enjoyed this assignment. I think that it gave me and my mom and dad a little extra connection because I was able to ask them such personal questions about me when I was growing up and they both had very different favorite memories and milestone, which I was able to learn about. I talked to my mom a lot about her pregnancy with me. She had a typical pregnancy with no complication. I wasn’t born early or late, just a few days off from my due date. I was a very normal baby, I hit my milestones on time or early, and I was walking at 9 months! My parents were very big on making sure they read to me, sang to me and had the best intellectual development I could get. They put me in an in-home daycare with a close family friend to make sure I would be receiving the attention I needed. I asked a lot about first milestones, first big activities (vacation, days of school, broken bones, etc.) as well as my personality growing up. I learned a lot about my first milestones that I didn’t know before just because they were so long ago my memory can’t remember. I also learned a lot more about my personality that I wanted to. I thought that I was a fun active little girl but my parents were quick to set me straight. They told me about how sassy I was and that I was no stranger to giving attitude, even when it wasn’t needed. I was the middle child surrounded with 2 brothers so I talked with them about how my brothers affected me. My brothers I think were the biggest influences my life growing up I think and my parents agreed with that. My older brother was 5 years older than me and my little brother years younger. I was always looking up to my little brother and tying to impress him. He was my best friend through my childhood. Then my little brother came along and was born with a rare genetic disease. From then on I was different because I was always with my little brother, taking care of him and such. Now because of that my little brother and I are best friends and talk everyday where as my older brother and me are not as close. I had a few key memories from when I was little that I never really talked about with my parents so this was a good time to ask them how accurately I was remember them. My parents were able to confirm or deny how accurate I was and also fill in the blanks with some that I couldn’t remember. I think I was able to learn a lot from this assignment as well and confirm some things I already knew or was questioning. I think that this was a really great learning and growing assignment.

After calling my mom and asking her questions about my development, she had told me that talking about pregnancy was very strange to her and a little awkward that I had asked. So that topic went nowhere. She did, however, talk to me about different milestones I had growing up. I had gotten my first tooth at 6 months of age. Before I was able to walk, my mom said I was climbing everything, around 9 months. If my parents took their eyes off of me I would be crawling up the stairs to the second floor. As a result of this my parents placed a gate on the staircase so that I would not be able to go upstairs. There was one day my parents could not find me. They looked everywhere downstairs for a little while until going to the back hallway where our staircase is. They found me halfway up the staircase. I had climbed over the gate. At 11 months I had started walking by myself. This is a month earlier then the average child. My mom had also told me I had countless ear infections. One of the problems my parents had with me was that it was not until I was about ten months that I had started to sleep through the night. I am not sure when kids start riding bikes with training wheels, but when I talked to my parents they had told me that I wanted to keep up with my older brother doing everything he did, so before my third birthday I was riding a bike without training wheels. After talking to my parents about milestones that I had growing up, we discussed my temperament. My mom said that I was a very sweet kid. I never back talked my parents like my siblings did. Even though I was a sweet kid, I was told I had a bit of a temper. If I got mad I would be mad for a long time, I would hold a grudge for about half a day. I did have attachment problems. My parents would leave me home with a babysitter and I would beg them not to go. My dad said there was a time they left me at with my grandparents, my dads side, and that I was so mad and cried for so long that I fell asleep on the rug by the front door waiting for my parents to come home. After that my grandparents refused to watch me when my parents went out for dinner or whatever. I threw a huge fit when I was told I had to go to preschool. My parents say it was because I wanted to stay home with my little sister, who had recently been born. I highly doubt that was the reason. The reason I did not want to go to preschool was because I knew I would not like it.

This assignment taught me a lot about my mom's pregnancy with me and how was when I was a child. First thing my mom told me is that I wasn't expected. She was actually taking the pill and wasn't planning on having another child for a couple more years which is something I didn't know until now. My mom also told me the story about when her water broke. My dad and her were on the way to a cubs game, as they were about to meet Ron Santo my mom's water broke and they had to leave before they got to meet him. I asked my mom about my temperament and she said I was quiet but always happy, which is funny cause that's how I am now too or how I try to be. She said I rarely cried and that she was worried something was wrong with me for a while because I didn’t cry much. My mom told me that as a baby she saw the same personality traits that my half sister had, which is funny cause she’s ten years older than me. After my mom said that I decided I would ask my sister what I was like because I always was around her growing up. She told me that she had to give me her attention because my family thought my brother was deaf because he didn’t talk much and always had problems with his ears, so my parents gave him a lot of attention. My sister told me that growing up I had a really big imagination and had two imaginary friends and a blanket that went everywhere with me. As a kid I also had problems with sleep. My mom said I would sleep through dinner at least 4 times a week, and although they tried everything to wake me up they couldn’t. I remember going to the hospital to get tests done but all they said was to take my tonsils out and adenoids and maybe that would help. I still now am tired all the time and my mom has talked about going and getting more test done. The thing that surprised me most that my mom told me is that I used to love trying new food. I’m a very picky eater and so hearing that made me want to figure out what it was that made me change from so optimistic about food, to never going outside my comfort zone.
I’m so glad I got the chance to ask my mom about her pregnancy, and how I was as a child. It was a great conversation to have with her as I’m three and a half hours away. She got pretty emotional talking about all of this because of how fast the time went and it makes me thankful that she can remember the little things like when I first took a step and the name of the first children’s book I read to myself. My mom told me that I was pretty advanced and was able to walk and talk pretty early, and did it faster than what my brother did. Which is always great knowing I have a one up on him. This assignment opened my eyes to how important development is in youth, and how it shapes the way they will be as they get older.

I called my mom and dad both for the interview, regarding how I was raised. They were both committed parents throughout my upbringing. They were never absent from my life, and they supported me throughout everything I did. I started my interview from the beginning by first, asking my mom what pregnancy was like. She said that she was excited through the process, although she was not sure what she should expect, but as my due date drew nearer she became nervous and a little scared. She didn’t really know how it would all work out. I was born a day or two after my due date, and by then mom said she was tired of waiting. I was on the right track to have a normal childhood through my early years, I was talking by the age of 8 months. Shortly after, while we were on vacation in Okoboji I took my first steps at 10 months old. Then I asked my dad what I was like after I was able to walk and talk. He told me I was constantly getting into things in the drawers, and apparently I had a habit of taking things and hiding them. They were annoyed by it, but they passed if off as cute behavior. I was told I had loved my blanket, to the point where I didn’t go anywhere without it, so when I was around four years old my parents took my blanket and told me it got eaten by the washer, and I believed them. Both my parents had jobs, so it was a tandem effort between them and my babysitter to potty train me, and I was fully potty trained by the time I was 3.

I was a relatively healthy child. The most severe disease I had was jaundice, at a very young age. The way my parents cured my jaundice was to set me in the window so I would be exposed to the sun more which was supposed to get rid of it. Their treatment worked, but as a side-effect I had a nice sunburn. Mom told me when I got sunburned, she thought she was the worst parent ever, but she said now that she’s had four, she doesn’t take the minor issues nearly as seriously. My parents raised me well and they played a huge part in my development into the person I am today.

For this interview, I decided to call my mother because we have always been very close growing up. When I was in first grade, my father was deployed to Iraq. While he was gone in that year, I became very attached to my mother, because she was now my main caregiver. Before talking abut this subject, I started out asking my mom about her pregnancy. She said that being pregnant with me was very nerve-racking for her due to her several former miscarriages. After miscarrying so many times and losing what she thought was her first baby, my mom was scared that she would be let down again. I asked what was different when I came around. She said that she took all the prenatal vitamins that she needed for my proper development and the pregnancy was very normal. I was born on time and I was “the perfect baby”. As a baby, I had a very hard time sleeping at night due to several ear infections and the placement of tubes in my ears. My dad chimed in during this time of the interview and the first six months after I was born was the worst; he said the only way I could sleep was if I was sitting up, tucked in the crook of his arm. Six months of sleeping in a recliner took its toll on him apparently. I also had night terrors as a child. My mom said it was terrifying when I would wake up screaming and couldn’t be woken up. I thought this was actually the coolest piece of knowledge. I’ve read about night terrors and I’ve wanted to know what they were like and to fin out I used to have them is funny to me. After the ear infections I was a very quiet child and obedient growing up. My mom says I never misbehaved and always did what I was told without question. When my brother was born, I was even quieter. She said because my younger brother cried constantly and he never slept, that she and my dad were very busy with him and I occupied myself with drawing or TV. This is when we started talking about when my father was deployed. She said this had a major impact on my development. I was very torn up about my father leaving and fell into a depression. I stopped eating, going to school, and talking to friends. This stopped me from having life experiences I needed to have to develop at a normal pace. Along with the depression, I had terrible anxiety. The worst anxiety I had was separation anxiety. My mom said I would cry anytime she left or dropped me off at school. I remember having thoughts about, What if she never comes home, she’s going to get in an accident and die, I’ never going to see her again, what will I do without her?. With this anxiety of my father leaving, I had many years of therapy that never worked. I was started on medication and the separation anxiety wasn’t as extreme. She said overall I was a good child growing up and there were never any times she worried I wasn’t developing correctly or on time. I thought the interview with my mom was fun to listen to. I think it’s beneficial to know these things about how you grew up. I have talked to my mother about all of this many times because I think its so interesting. I want to know what I was like as a child to contrast how I’ve changed since then. Reading the chapter made me understand much of what she was saying and could relate it to the information I learned. After talking with my mom, I feel even closer to her knowing she took care of me and everything she had to go through to make sure I developed properly into who I am today.

For this assignment I have chose to give my mother a call and ask her a few questions about my upbringing. I have four other siblings so she had to do a little bit of digging into my baby stuff to remember a couple of things. She informed me that the most painful part of her pregnancy with me is that during the eighth month, she began to have kidney stones. Kidney stones are small, hard deposits that form inside your kidneys, which she informed that feel almost as painful as going into labor all the time. Other than that I was one of the easiest pregnancies for her. She said that it was felt long because she found out the first month of being pregnant. I arrived a 2 weeks earlier than planned, so upon arrival of my big day she was went out to playing bingo with my grandma and a few of her friends. She thought that is was false contractions so she stayed and kept playing after winning she realized that I was ready to come out. No, I was not born in a bingo hall. hahah. After arriving at the hospital my mom was in labor about another day before I officially arrived. I then asked my mom questions about how I was growing up. I started walking at about 10 months, did not get teeth until 13 months. My first word was mama. From the sounds of everything my mother has told me, I sound like I was a pretty average baby. Growing up I was just a little dare devil though I always got hurt because I wanted to be like my brothers and their friends. I remember breaking my arm in Kindergarten because I thought I could be like everyone else and jump off the swings. Lets just say that I've learned my lesson since then. I hope my future children are just as easy if not better than myself.

For this assignment, I called my mother to see if I was a good child and to see how her pregnancy was with me. I was her second and last child she had. I was born of normal size and wasn’t early or late. She had a C-section for my older sister but for me she didn’t have any problems and had me normally. When I asked my mom what cravings she had when she was pregnant she said she wanted to eat everything especially sweets. Overall the time she was pregnant with me she said it was an easy pregnancy especially compared to my sister.
After I was born I was a good child. I slept through the night and barely cried. I started walking at a normal age and got potty trained at a normal age too. I seemed to be a good, normal kid. When I was around 9 I wasn’t growing like the rest of the kids my age. Although I was born of normal weight, at 9 years old I was below the “normal” height and weight chart. I remember the doctor talking to my mom about giving me something that will make me grow more. She then asked me if I wanted to do it and I said that I didn’t. Even though I didn’t take the pills to help me grow, I am healthy but a little shorter and skinny then most guys my age. A lot of people think I am 18 years old when I’m actually 21. I learned a lot from this interview with my mother. I found out I was an easy kid to take care of and I have always been just a little smaller than the rest of the kids.

Over the years, I've always asked my parents and grandparents about how I was as a baby and young child out of curiosity so I really enjoyed this assignment. I decided to interview my mom since we have a close relationship and her, along with my dad were my primary caregivers and raised me. Other than both parents, I was also close with my grandparents so I’ve heard multiple relatives’ stories about me as a child. I didn’t get a chance to interview my dad since our schedules have conflicted a lot to school and work but he is the one hat remembers all the first words of my brother & I, since my mom worked a lot when we were younger and he has a better memory. I started crawling, walking and talking pretty close to average times that most babies start.
I was the first born so my mom said the pregnancy was pretty average. I ended up being a c-section baby which I’ve always found kind of unique, I also was born in the middle of the night and a day late. She said I was a good baby but before I was a year old, I screamed everyday between 6:30 and 8:30 at night and no one knew why until they gave me a blanket I wanted. Whenever I ask about my early years, my mom and grandparents always talk about how terrible my terrible twos were. From my understanding, I would throw the biggest fits over nothing, she said I would lay on the ground, screaming and crying. Then I realized sometimes I still do that. Just kidding. Apparently I got mad when I had to wear clothes also. I was always mad about wearing anything pink or girly so I was more of a tomboy, so that caused a lot of temper tantrums. It got worse as my brother was born since I wasn’t receiving all the attention, I was a little diva. I guess I was so bitter about having a brother, people would ask my what his name was and I would just say “boy” and pout. Eventually I grew out my tomboy stage, acted like a girl and my brother became more a friend than a burden. I didn’t have as bad of separation problems most kids face. I was pretty sad to go to school the first few times when kindergarten started but other than that I seemed to adjust pretty quickly to school which is weird since I was an outcast through most of elementary school, I just read and stayed to myself by choice. I find that so hard to believe since I’m so outgoing now. We didn’t talk much about developing into a teenager since I do remember a lot of it, she kept saying how glad she was that I skipped a rebellious stage that a lot of teenagers get into at that point.
Overall I turned out pretty well so I’m thankful she took good care of me while pregnant and as a child. Judging on my uncontrollable terrible two stage, she says is so glad I turned out as good as I did. I really liked this assignment because I enjoy hearing about myself growing up because it is my life so that itself makes it interesting. I hear a lot about things I don’t remember doing and learn a lot about myself as a whole.
After reading the chapter, I think I was a pretty average kid, development wise. I did have a memorable childhood that I could reminisce on all day. Luckily, I have matured and changed a lot in those years but that’s what development does and there is more to come as time goes by and I become more into an adult.

For this assignment i decided to talk to my mother, my mother is a stay at home mom so she knows a lot about my development. I was the second born out of four so i am a middle child. My first word was mom in my own language, my development was pretty much the same as it says online and stuff, it varied a bit but i had a normal development.

Being a middle child i never got full attention, while growing up i probably felt like my brother got more attention than me so i was jealous of him at times, now my brother and me have a great relationship though.
My mother also told me that she changes her diet drastically when she is pregnant, eating more folic acid and foods with proteins and vitamins which help the development of a baby.

One of the main things i wanted to know was what kind of attitude i had as a baby and according to my mother I was a very happy quiet baby, I've seen childhood videos of myself too and I really was very easy child to take care of, then when i grew older 4-10 i was a very hyper child and was excited all the time, like most kids are, so I had a very normal development.

My father helped my development by playing sports with me and taking me to lots of places for new experiences. I'm glad to have had such great parents growing up.

Terms: Folic acid, Proteins, development, Vitamins,

Author Profile Page unipanther | September 18, 2014 6:15 PM | Reply
For this assignment, I called my mother to see if I was a good child and to see how her pregnancy was with me. I was her second and last child she had. I was born of normal size and wasn’t early or late. She had a C-section for my older sister but for me she didn’t have any problems and had me normally. When I asked my mom what cravings she had when she was pregnant she said she wanted to eat everything especially sweets. Overall the time she was pregnant with me she said it was an easy pregnancy especially compared to my sister.
After I was born I was a good child. I slept through the night and barely cried. I started walking at a normal age and got potty trained at a normal age too. I seemed to be a good, normal kid. When I was around 9 I wasn’t growing like the rest of the kids my age. Although I was born of normal weight, at 9 years old I was below the “normal” height and weight chart. I remember the doctor talking to my mom about giving me something that will make me grow more. She then asked me if I wanted to do it and I said that I didn’t. Even though I didn’t take the pills to help me grow, I am healthy but a little shorter and skinny then most guys my age. A lot of people think I am 18 years old when I’m actually 21. I learned a lot from this interview with my mother. I found out I was an easy kid to take care of and I have always been just a little smaller than the rest of the kids.