recommendation

We really love "Signing Time!"

It was created by the family of a deaf child. It has so much heart and wonderful music. Peter really enjoys it-- and actually, Chris & I do too. We found the whole series at our local library.

At first, only Chris & I were learning from the DVDs but after Peter had been signing for 3 months or so he started learning from the DVDs. I know this because lately he started signing a bunch of words that I never taught him. I can also tell a difference in the the way he watches. It's like you can see the wheels turning in his head.

I've started using some of the songs at the sing-a-long I lead at the library. Several moms said those are their kids favorite songs -- and I see them really learning the signs too.

milestone

Yesterday Peter made pee-pee in the potty for the first time. Today he made his first poopy in the potty. After he learned the sign for potty he started telling me that he had to go. My mom said that I should take that as a sign that he was ready for potty training. I borrowed a potty from a friend. The next time he told me he had to go I tried sitting him on the little potty-- he seemed afraid to sit on it, so I put it in a corner and let the whole thing go. Weeks later he pulls it out of the corner, sits on it and signs for me to undress him-- but when I came to take his clothes off he signs for me to take him upstairs to the grown up potty. I did. And he sat on it no problem-- but no pee pees came. Chris said he would have a hard time peeing in front of his Mom, so yesterday when Peter asked I let Chris take him to the bathroom and it worked! Today he was able to make it work with Mommy in attendance.

childproofing defeated

So, Thursday 29 November I go into the kitchen to see if we had marmalade, or if I needed to add it to my shopping list. I was in there less than a minute. I hear a squeal from the dining room that sounds a little too happy. I come back in and Peter is in the middle of the dining room table eating the salt. I'd never seen him climb before and instantly he is an expert.

Monday 3 December, I slammed the index finger of my dominant hand in the car door rendering it useless for a week. Wouldn't you know it? Peter proceeds to defeat almost every bit of baby proofing we've done that week. He easily climbs the barrier to get to the stairs. He climbs my accordion to get onto a side table that has an interesting antique lamp. And he's figured out how to pull climbable things over to unclimbable things so he can reach them.

Fortunately, he's pretty good at climbing down stairs and tall objects and he seems to remember which things I've told him are hot -- but still, he really can't be left alone now. And he's so fast. The same week as the salt incident he ran away from me at the pool and almost jumped into the deep end before I could get there.

He's starting to really get into books now. He really listens and signs all the words that he knows and asks about pictures of things that he doesn't know the words for. Hours of fun. Last week he asked me to read "Goodnight Moon" to him in the middle of the day. When we got to the part where you start to say goodnight to everything he started crying. He was inconsolable until I made it clear that he didn't really have to go to bed.

He's signing all the time now. He signs to ask for what he wants, when he sees an object he recognizes in real life or in a picture, and also when he hears a word he knows either in conversation or in a song. Chris and I were making a curry and looking for fish sauce at our local grocery. Peter starts signing "Fish" just to be part of the conversation. We like to watch Northern Exposure, which has a moose in the credits. Peter will start signing "Moose" now during the opening scene-- before the music has even started to let us know that he knows there is going to be a moose.

He's extremely verbal now. He'll make long streams of sounds-- like sentences. Sometimes the sounds sound like words. Sometime they don't. He is very good at imitating the musicality and flow of the way he hears people talk. It's very disconcerting to hear how he hears me and to see my gestural life mimicked.

Small creatures talking

We had a great weekend. Boy news first: I was on record as being dubious about the whole infant sign language thing, but I am a believer now. The kid talks all the time.

He talk about what he wants: eat and drink have been consistant for a while now, but he's starting to get more specific and increasing his vocabulary. In the kitchen this weekend, we saw him ask for a banana for the first time. He's was pointing but we kept not understanding, so he just made the sign for banana and our jaws dropped. It's not one of those signs you can easily misinterpret either, you hold up your index finger and make a peeling motion with your other hand. He said it clear as day.

He also likes to talk about what he sees, which mostly means lots of animal signs. Anything large and quadrupedal gets the horse sign, but that's not bad. The difference between horse, cow, donkey, and moose signs are pretty finicky. He came to visit my high school class on Friday and impressed everyone by correctly identifying the animals we found with google image search.

And to think that without sign language I might have no idea how much goes on in his head! I might not have known he could tell a cat from a dog, much less a picture of a dog from a picture of a horse! Credit to his mom, again, on this one.

So here's me, psychology grad, certified teacher, didn't know anything at all until this kid came along.

Yesterday Peter went to visit my folks while Grey and I went to see the Golden Compass. It was great! I found it much more emotionally involving than the rest of the epic fantasy type movies (Narnia, Star Wars, Hobbits, etc.) and I thought that the seditious themes were portrayed fairly true to the books. Any more overt and it would have been caricature, there is so much less room for imagination and subtlety in movies.

I'm writing a lot this morning because my lesson is coming hard, but at least I am getting something done, right?

Us, you, and your mailbox

I really love how a blog post lets you reach your friends in a way they can ignore without hurting your feelings. Here's another time I am relying on this feature.

If you are reading this, you are one of our friends. We want to send you one of our new Christmastime cards. We have probably lost your address. Can you help?

Would you consider filling in this obnoxious form to tell us where to send your card? It's completely private and will make it much less likely that we lose your address in the chaos of Chris's inbox.

Here is a picture of Peter from Halloween that I really like.

Things I learned this morning

My morning commute is often a time for reflection and contemplation, a quiet time on cruise control with coffee and a bagel.

But this morning I learned three new things:

1. There is at least one coyote living in Boonton, NJ

2. A Cadillac at 60mph can brake and maneuver more abrubtly than you might think

3. Coyotes are extremely nimble