An Introduction: Piaget and a Precious Soul

First of all, please do not get the wrong idea from the blog title. We did not get pregnant so that I could run some experiments from home. I do not view this baby as a grand experiment. I have basically wanted to have a baby since I was 6 years old, when my mom was expecting the birth of my little sister. Then, when my sister was born, it was confirmed in my mind that I wanted one of my own. When my sister got older, I tried to talk my parents into becoming foster parents to infants so that I could have a baby around all the time. My mom did not buy into it since she said I would be at school all day, so she would actually be the one taking care of the babies. I didn't lose heart in my attempts at persuasion. However, now that my husband and I are expecting our first child, it seems like a giant, lifelong dream has come true. God has entrusted us with a precious soul to care for and cherish for the rest of our lives.

Now, at the same time, I do plan on testing some theories that I have come across over the years of my studies in developmental psychology. After all, Jean Piaget, the famous developmental psychologist whose findings are still studied by psychologists and educators everywhere, conducted the bulk of his research simply with his own three children. His many contributions to the field of developmental psychology came from a subject pool of 3! So, if he can make major contributions with an N=3, than perhaps I can make some minor findings of interest to a few with an N=1. I absolutely love the study of infant and child development. In the eighth grade, we were given the assignment of a major research speech in our English class. We could choose any subject we wanted, so I chose "how holding a baby affects his/her development." I fell in love with the topic and knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life in the field of child development. Thus, I discovered the pathway of majoring in psychology to follow such a pursuit, and God directed my steps to where it seemed as if I fell into a phD program for developmental psychology. I've enjoyed infant research and teaching Developmental Psychology to college students for the past several years.

Whenever I teach about prenatal development and childhood learning environments, I always talk about what I will do when I have kids of my own and what mini-experiments I will try on my own little blessing. Now that I actually have a little person growing inside of me, some of my viewpoint has changed but I still have lots of plans for trying to apply research findings to real life. This blog will be dedicated to chronicling those attempts and findings and taking an honest look at the joy and emotions of new life.