When my baby was three days old, I started singing to her regularly. I sang for her to sleep. I sang just to pretend, too, that I was hearing some voices around me. I was all alone at home during the day with my new born then. Then after two months, she was “singing” herself to sleep! She was humming the lullaby song, the same song that I sang to her over and over. On her 3rd month, my husband and I experimented on singing our family themesong, in fact, daddy’s themesong for my baby and me — Mark Wills’ I DO. We captured on the video how she sang with us – she even said a part of the song – I WILL. It was a momentous event.

My baby has learned to distinguish what a song is from what isn’t at a young age of 3 months. She first played piano at 5 months. And on her 19th month, she was able to compose a melody that you wouldn’t believe it was coming from a toddler. I still haven’t downloaded the videos from our video cam.

When I got hooked with Charice’s amazing voice, I played her songs everyday (via youtube). With my baby on my lap, she started to love Charice’s song, “Pyramid”, and Justin Bieber’s song, “Baby”. Every time I play songs in my laptop, my baby would join me. We have been doing music tripping for two months now. And the effect? Fantastic. She loves to watch Charice and Justin Bieber and follows their movements when singing or dancing. She claps after their superb performance. Yes. My baby just watches her favorite singers on youtube (I connect the laptop to our 42-inch TV for bigger screen). I dream that one day, my baby and I will meet our favorite singers, Charice and Justin. Yes, they have become my favorite as well.

I realized that it’s not hard to cultivate any talent in a child. It’s something that isn’t born with, in the first place. Any talent can be cultivated. But, of course, the genes are an added-value. My hubby is musically inclined. But me – I listen to music when I want to, but, not all the time. I just did what I needed to do as a mom. I sang, sang, and sang for my baby, and she was able to build on that skill at an early age.

This morning, for our bonding moment (my baby and me) — we watched the youtube videos of Charice and Justin Bieber for 1 hour! I really didn’t intend to let my baby watch for 1 hour, but, she wanted to watch for more. When she got tired watching, she was the one who told me to close the TV. She’s now playing with her building blocks, and I’m back to my work-mode.

A parent plays a good role in harnessing any talent in a child. It doesn’t mean pressuring the child to do whatever we wanted him/her to do. Harnessing any talent means showing/exposing the child to all things as much as possible by repeatedly doing it until it becomes a good habit to break. By giving the child a variety of activities that you and your child both do, you’d know the strengths and weaknesses of your child at a young age.

For example, my baby is bored with her educational stuffs. I thought she wasn’t learning because she hardly looked at her educational videos in the past. She was listening but not watching. But she loves to watch movies – cartoon movies. And she loves to watch performances by great singers. She knows when one singer is a trying hard one. I have a story about it but opted not to share it here. It’s just between my baby and me, and her nanny. We witnessed how my baby was bored when I shifted to watching other videos of some artists back home. She knows what a quality voice is.

If you’re a parent, an expectant mom, don’t worry of making your child a genius or gifted one by pressuring your child do things beyond her limit. Just observe your child well whenever you do things with her. One day, you’d be surprised with the effect on how you have greatly influenced a wanna-be-singer child in the future, or anything that your child has grown accustomed with.

The future of our child lies in our hands, dear parents, and not on anyone else’s. We shouldn’t rely on those videos that promise our child to be geniuses. Being a genius or gifted doesn’t happen overnight. It can be cultivated in our child – through our adequate, effective, and efficient baby caring and parenting practices.

Being a new mommy, I have a lot of things to do, really, a myriad of things to do at home and with my personal life. Oftentimes I am baffled with what to prioritize!

Stephen Covey says it well in a video from YouTube (embedding disabled so just click on this link to view the video).  It’s just a matter of choosing the important things on our to-do list and not reacting on urgent, unimportant/trivial things.

Prior to watching the video, I already wrote my to-do list for today. I crossed out those that were already done. I prioritized those that were easy-to-do. I still have three pending things to do from the 10 ToDos that I identified for the day.

One thing I do know is that – no matter how busy I would seem to be (in my mind), my priority is my baby. When she’s awake, I interact with her a lot. I talk to her, read her a book, teach her the ABCs, and count to her the numbers 1-10, and other fun things to do. I make it a point to ask my baby these two questions: “Are you OK?” and “Are you happy?” as borrowed from the greetings of Misterduncan in his Learning English with Misterduncan videos. My baby may not answer me yet, but the cute smile that she gives me is enough guarantee that she’s perfectly doing all right.

It’s also my priority to record her feeding pattern for the day. I have a quota to meet. She should consume at least 600ml for the day during her 2nd month. I started recording it this month, but was only consistent in recording her feeding pattern since June 9. Soon I will make a chart of her weekly feedings.

I am still coping with the demands of household chores, in particular, in cooking our meals, and in maintaining the cleanliness of our house. It’s just two months since I gave birth so my body is still recuperating from the rigors of sleepless nights. But, in totality, I am overjoyed of having a baby who surprises me everyday with her new antics. I was just saying to my husband that when it comes to our baby, it’s as if I’m dealing with a year old baby or a 2-year old baby and not with a 2-month old. (pwera bati!)

From now on, it would be my habit to record my ToDos for the day, and screen out the important things and do them right away.

In a related video, former CEO of iBeams Peter Desnoes, talks about knowing what’s important in one’s life and being solely responsible for that in order to know who/what a person wants to be. He explained it well through his words to live by:

Figure out where you want to go and then you figure out the path to get there.

At the end of the day, no one is responsible for the trip, for that journey than you.