Leslie sat on the floor with the baby in her lap , making ecstatic dabs at his fat little hands as he fluttered them in the air . `` Oh , you dear , beautiful , beloved baby , '' she mumbled , catching one wee hand and covering it with kisses . `` Is n't him ze darlingest itty sing , '' crooned Anne , hanging over the arm of her chair adoringly . `` Dem itty wee pads are ze very tweetest handies in ze whole big world , is n't dey , you darling itty man . '' Anne , in the months before Little Jem 's coming , had pored diligently over several wise volumes , and pinned her faith to one in especial , `` Sir Oracle on the Care and Training of Children . '' Sir Oracle implored parents by all they held sacred never to talk `` baby talk '' to their children . Infants should invariably be addressed in classical language from the moment of their birth . So should they learn to speak English undefiled from their earliest utterance . `` How , '' demanded Sir Oracle , `` can a mother reasonably expect her child to learn correct speech , when she continually accustoms its impressionable gray matter to such absurd expressions and distortions of our noble tongue as thoughtless mothers inflict every day on the helpless creatures committed to their care ? Can a child who is constantly called ` tweet itty wee singie ' ever attain to any proper conception of his own being and possibilities and destiny ? '' Anne was vastly impressed with this , and informed Gilbert that she meant to make it an inflexible rule never , under any circumstances , to talk `` baby talk '' to her children . Gilbert agreed with her , and they made a solemn compact on the subject -- a compact which Anne shamelessly violated the very first moment Little Jem was laid in her arms . `` Oh , the darling itty wee sing ! '' she had exclaimed . And she had continued to violate it ever since . When Gilbert teased her she laughed Sir Oracle to scorn . `` He never had any children of his own , Gilbert -- I am positive he had n't or he would never have written such rubbish . You just ca n't help talking baby talk to a baby . It comes natural -- and it 's RIGHT . It would be inhuman to talk to those tiny , soft , velvety little creatures as we do to great big boys and girls .
Babies want love and cuddling and all the sweet baby talk they can get , and Little Jem is going XXXXX have it , bless his dear itty heartums . ''
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