Ethan update

[honey_mustard]

Being a mom rocks. I love it. I love this little guy so much. He is the best thing ever. He loves to eat and eat and eat and sleep a lot, too. What a great baby. He has already gained 600 grams -over a pound, and actually that was on Monday, so he gained that much in less than a week. Even more exciting, I have lost 12 pounds in the past week,

Comments

[vip1]

Wow! That book looks awesome! Just bought a copy for Lila. And, if it helps get Daniel completely out of Pull-Ups, I won't complain! ;-) I'm all for lofty goals for potty training! I swore I'd have Daniel completely potty trained by 2. That was last Friday. He still hasn't learned to control his peeing. We've gotten him to pee on the potty a couple of times and each time he has looked surprised and even said "Uh-oh!"....we have a ways to go still. Once he learns HOW to pee, I think we'll be mostly there, though. He wants to use the big potty, so that's most of the battle! I considered the EC thing with Daniel for the whole not paying a year's tuition for diapers thing, but it looked too confusing and I didn't want to be inconvenienced in public. I didn't know it was something you didn't have to do 100% of the time

[honey_mustard]

Ha ha! I love your mommy stories- they crack me up and encourage me at the same time. I especially love all the funny words Daniel said before Mommy- that was hilarious. I bet that happens to me, too.

Whoa- Kyle speaking all Spanish and me all English... hard to imagine. I bet that would work, if we could do it. It would mess with our brains! ha ha. Our thought is to maybe just speak English when we are home alone, but then speak Spanish with Spanish speakers so that he (maybe?) gets that he's supposed to talk to other people in Spanish and talk to us in English... we'll see. I bet more is a really useful word. Already when Ethan wants to breast feed again 20 minutes after he just finished eating I say- really? are you still hungry?? More would help.

[auddiegirl7]

hey i like your userpic too.
ha ha

bob thinks ethan's gonna be a genious. maybe he'll be walking for our wedding!
:]
i'm worried about him recognizing me too :[ we'll have to make you a collage or something of everybody to put on the fridge so he can practice names. :]

[honey_mustard]

and you guys have to come visit us whenever you can.

Sign Language

[egli]

Kari and I have talked about sign language and have decided against it for our kids. Our feeling is any effort that goes into teaching sign language could just as easily be put into teaching them the actual words. It seems to me like having the kid learn some sign language would just complicate learning to talk since it's throwing a second (third, in your case) language into the mix.

Of course everybody is entitled to their own parenting opinions, and in the long run whether or not you teach your kid some sign language probably matters very little.

Re: Sign Language

[honey_mustard]

yeah, I agree that in the long run it probably doesn't matter. I think it might be easier at the time, which is why I would do it, not because it will make the difference between Stanford or MIT.

[beyond_eden]

OMG!!!!! Josh and I are totally going to do potty training that way!!!! I'm so excited! Now everyone can hear about it through you guys and see that it works and is great. That way when we get there, people won't think we're quite as crazy. Check out the website, too. There's a lot of pointers and friendly encouragement/help/FAQs and stuff. www.diaperfreebaby.org It makes so much sense...kids have bladder control from birth...why not potty train while they still hang on your every word instead of waiting until they hit the "terrible twos" rebelion?

I'm so excited!! Keep me up to date on how it goes.

[beyond_eden]

Oh...and as far as the sign language thing...I think in bilingual atmospheres especially, it can be very helpful. I know Heather and Joel did it when they got Miguel. It was good because he was so delayed on speech, they could kind of tell what he wanted. (Plus Heather is semi-fluent in sign-language and signs to Joel (and me if I'm there) anyway. I know the huge ones with Miguel were "more", "all done", and "shoes". More and all done were important because it was hard to tell if he was just distracted or actually done eating...once he could say he was ready for more it went smoother. The only real benefit is that it gives children a way to communicate before they have the muscle control in the mouth/tongue to actually speak. They won't be signing sonnets or anything, but it is helpful to a certain degree.

Actually on the website I mentioned before, there is a more information and links section to sign language stuff.

[honey_mustard]

yeah that makes sense. So, Miguel had to totally start over in all his language learning from Spanish to English, right? I bet that was confusing for the little guy. Sign language would def help.