The Baby Wordplay story
On an island named Jamaica, in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, there lived a little girl.
One day, she set off on a journey that took her across land, over water, and into new worlds. When her travels brought her to the edge of the United States, she sat down and thought, maybe this is where she should stay.
That little girl was me.
The Princeton Years: Where Dreams Took Root
Just then, a strong breeze came by and blew me further north.
I landed in Princeton, New Jersey.
And just like that, I was 24, the mother of two children under 3.
My husband, a physician, was away a lot, working and studying for his PhD at the Harvard School of Public Health.
We bought the house we could afford. In time, it became the backdrop of a thousand special moments, but at the outset, it was, as one friend bluntly put it, a “dawg.” Renovating a house in a new town, while caring for two young children, was intense.
The house eventually became a home where we hosted frequent dance parties, sometimes with live music. Summers were filled with extended family and fireflies twinkling in our wooded backyard.
In Princeton, I stepped giddily into adulthood and motherhood. I ran a household, completed my Masters, and explored activism and art.
When our son, who we later learned is on the spectrum, was struggling in school, I stumbled on an article in The Atlantic by David Guterson, the author of Snow Falling on Cedars. He wrote about his family’s decision to homeschool their 3 children. The idea captivated my imagination.
It was mid-August when I read that article. Two weeks later, the school buses came, but our children did not get on them.
They did not return to a formal classroom until 5 years later.
The Philadelphia Years: A New Chapter of Strength
There is nothing like a life threatening diagnosis to put you into a state of deep reflection: colorectal cancer. After two gruelling (but successful!) years of treatment, I found myself in remission and at a crossroads. I had spent nearly 30 years as a children’s librarian at Princeton Public Library, a job I loved, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was time to chase a dream.
So, from my living room couch, while I was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, I wrote the business plan for Baby Wordplay.
Philadelphia welcomed Baby Wordplay with open arms as we embarked on our adventures with babies and language. For the thousands of families that we worked with in-person, and for organisations like the preschools, hospitals, nonprofits and businesses we worked with, we became a valued fixture.
Baby Wordplay Podcast: Connecting Families One Word at a Time
Fast forward to 2021, and the pandemic had changed everything. Especially for children.
In the midst of it, my daughter Maya and I asked each other one question:
How can we help parents engage their babies and toddlers in ways that will support language development and emotional regulation?
For us it was key not to just tell parents what to do, but to show them and support them on this exciting journey.
To get into their living rooms and onto their changing tables and give them tips on how to persistently offer babies and toddlers invitations to connect around singing, gesturing, talking, and reading.
Because we know from research that babies and toddlers don’t learn language through video or audio alone.
Our answer to that question was: a podcast that would bring interactive storyplays to parents, where they are.
Baby Wordplay Podcast has since been downloaded over a million times and continues to grow.
This is just the beginning of our story.
Thank you for being part of it!
