Go on, ask me ‘why’ one more time, kid – make my day!

Why? Why? Why? Why? My kid can string these together with persistence and aplomb.

I said a while back that if I were in a strange land and had only one word I might chose the word ‘no’ – that word has power in it. You can say ‘yes’ with a smile, with your actions, and take time over it… but ‘NO!’ is sometimes a useful word to be able to shout out, if something is happening that you don’t like. I said that when my kid was 18 months old and ‘no’ was her new, favourite word – and I could see why. I supported her fledgling right to set her own boundaries and to affirm her self-determination (even as I am clear about who is the parent and guide, here – I believe in ‘gentle discipline’ not ‘no discipline’).

Now she is 27months old (two and a quarter for those who stopped counting in months) and her favourite word is WHY? It has been since she was two. It goes a little something like this:

– It is raining.

– Why?

– Because the clouds got heavy with water and the temperature changed and it all came falling out of the sky.

– Why?

– Because the Earth needs to be watered, so the plants can grow.

– Why?

…

You get the picture (maybe you have lived a variation on this scenario many times, yourself).

I try and keep it simple, to appeal to her imagination (rather than feed her intellect – not that you can tell from the above example). She is a child, after all. I want her to enjoy the simplicity of an innocent, magical view of the Universe as long as possible. Sometimes I turn it back on her and ask her ‘why do you think?’ as so many people suggest… but that doesn’t really work on her, just makes her own ‘whys’ louder. I also try the ‘I wonder’ thing, which I LOVE the idea of but actually also rarely works for me (at this age, at least)… although that might be partly lost in translation, as I can’t quite find as rich words for it in Portuguese.

Anyway, the point is this: I have always heard about this phase kids go through. I had been warned about it. And yet, now that I am here I find I don’t hate it… I actually quite enjoy it. I love feeding her the information she is SOOOOOO hungry for.

In fact, I was contemplating the Toddler situation of being dropped on this Planet with the challenge of learning the language, the culture, the family ways, the customs, EVERYTHING from scratch; to understand so much but to be able to control so little. And again it set me to wondering what words I would make most use of in this kind of scenario. If I was dropped on a new continent or a new Planet and I had limited vocab, a burgeoning understanding of what is going on and a driving NEED to figure it all out, find out how things fit together, how things work, what does what, what is dangerous, what is interesting, what is useful?… Everything is so new, so interesting and I am finding out quickly that everything is connected and that there is causality everything that is happening. Yep, once I had gotten over the ‘name this, name that’ stage of learning the language and culture, I’d definitely be on to ‘WHY?’ What other word could help me learn all the things I want to learn faster?!

Truly, I do not feel they do it to bug us (even if invariably it will, sometimes, right? when you are tired and overwrought… but that is your problem not theirs). And yes, sometimes she doesn’t seem to really pay attention to the answers but even then she is, I believe, gathering information, understanding that there is a ‘why’ behind almost everything that happens in this world. 99% of the time, though, I swear, she is using this word as a flashlight, focussing in on interesting events and gaining as much insight as she can in as little a time as possible.

So, along with ‘no’ I am surprised to find I actually welcome and enjoy many if not most of her whys. Bless you my child for your endless, avid curiosity. Long may it continue!

Two and potty trained: a real world review of how the ‘3-day’ method worked for us

My child is two and is potty trained. Actually I would say she was potty trained at 22 months, but it is all in how you look at it, really.

I have been fielding a few questions about this recently – people asking me how she is doing now (following my 3-day potty training series), so I wanted to come back and write a kind of wrap-up post with a review of our progress. First, for those who haven’t been following along…

Our ‘stats’

• we did the three-day potty training starting when little’un was just shy of 20 months old. We did not wait for the traditional ‘signs of readiness’ as we learned from our EC friends that a child’s instinct to stay clean and dry comes from birth, the rest is all habit and ‘learning’
• day one of the process, we had our first ‘walk-to’ poop, meaning she felt the urge and walked over to do a poo in the potty, completely spontaneously and unprompted. She got it – what this whole potty learning thing is about. But we were still having lots of ‘pee-misplacement incidents’
• day two we were getting more and more pees in the potty and three out of three poops had gone in the potty. Hazah!
• day three she night-trained herself. That was completely unexpected. I checked her diaper when she woke up after the second night and it was dry. That has remained the case with only a couple of exceptions to prove the rule (both exceptions happened not during her sleep but when she was restless, worked up and fighting sleep)
• … but we continued to have mixed success with pees – most went in the potty (either partially or fully) but one or two a day were still full-on misses
• at the end of the first month, we had our first full day with NO accidents. Hooray! We had had lots and lots of nearly-nearly days (where she made it all though the day without incident and then when we got home she would pee just before making it to the potty, often). Finally after four weeks she had her first ‘all in the potty’ day!
• … but there were still days with some accidents. We had very few poo accidents at all, in the whole process (and the ones that did happen were like on my friend’s patio – sorry again – or our hardwood floored hallway, thankfully) but we continued to have some pee accidents on some days. Then every few days we would have a full day with all the pee in the potty.
• after two months, when she had just turned 22 months, the ratio shifted and suddenly most days were ‘dry’ (underpants, trousers and legs stayed DRY) and days with any accidents became fewer and fewer.
• and from there on what started to happen for us was a new cycle. She would go for about two weeks with no accidents, then she’d have one mishap – usually on daddy’s watch (sorry to point this out… but really it is just the result of the fact that he has  less ‘training’ and is therefore less attuned to her non-verbal signals and she is less receptive to his prompting to go, too). Then after one accident it would be like a floodgate opened (no pun intended) and there would follow lots of other ones. I also noticed that invariably what had happened was that I had started the ‘dry’ cycle super vigilant and treating it like a dance for two, more like EC where I have to tune into her and sense her need and offer the potty at opportune times, lest she forget. After a couple weeks of success, I would get complacent and just wait for her to either go on her own (at home) or tell me she has to go, which worked most of the time… until she got distracted or absorbed by something (say playing with daddy) and forgot to go or overrode her body’s signals, which is normally where I would come in and offer – but daddy’s timing wasn’t always as finely honed so… accident one would give way to accident two and so on for a day or two till we got back to the rhythm.
• now, at 26 months old, it has been about a couple of months since Pipoca’s last full-on accident. What does happen now is she’ll often have a kind of pre-leak, where a little escapes before she acknowledges she has to go. So we still get through a lot of underwear but… when she needs to go, (the vast majority of) it goes in the potty.
• we are now transitioning to the big potty (aka the toilet). She was most comfortable on a little potty for a long while but the last few weeks we have mainly been using public toilets and only use the potty in the car. She seems to be really into this new phase, too, of doing it on the big potty like big girls and grown ups.

Our approach

We did all this with NO punishments, shaming, bribes or rewards. I really wanted her to want to go in the potty for its own sake, not as a way to get a raisin or a big family celebration or anything else. Yes, the timing largely came from us, adults, but it was very much from observing her interest in the potty (much as one introduces food when the kid follows our every spoonful – we don’t wait for them to ask for food to know they are ‘ready’ to eat). This was her process to lead, the speed at which we advanced was hers. We never pushed her or forced her to go, we always said, ‘okay, when you are ready’… even when we could really see she needed to go. The message was always: “This is your body and you know best when you need to go and how long you can hold it. We trust you.” This is what we wanted her to see, not that she would please mommy and daddy by going or that she’d get a reward – what we wanted her to come out of this with was a confidence that we trust her, we are here to support her learning. Plus, of course, she needed to gain a new awareness of her body and all the sensations that mean you need to go, etc. We also hoped we could have fun along the way… and we did.

So, it wasn’t the picture-perfect ‘three day’ process I was promised in the ‘brochures‘ (hah!). It took longer than that for us and we had a lot of accidents along the way (including in Ikea, Toys R Us, at the park)… But, actually, when I stopped thinking about it as ‘potty learning’ for her and instead started thinking of it as kind of dance, pair-work, something we do together, much more like late-start Elimination Communication than like traditional potty training, I adjusted my expectations and found that I really enjoyed the process – and it was much more successful this way, too. What I mean by this is I stopped putting all the onus on her to go on her own or tell me when she needed to go (which she did do most of the time) and remembered that even though she has ‘potty learned’ I still have a role in this, I still need to stay vigilant, offer the potty before we go out (whether she takes it or not, the offer is made); offer to go with her if I feel she needs the incentive, remind her it is time to go when she is starting to leak (small wet patch!?) or doing the potty dance, etc!… even as I always respect the fact that ultimately it is her choice (and pushing her would only make her push back harder, anyway).

Maybe this sounds obvious to many of you, but because she was doing it so well and so independently 90% of the time, it was easy to assume she’d got it and I could rest on my laurels the other 10%… until I learned over and over that (with her at least) I still had to be on the ball.

Reflecting on this process, this is the shocker: I think potty training my child has been one of the best things I have done on this parenting journey. It is actually one of the things I would say that has most helped me connect and get even closer to my beautiful baby girl. It was VERY hard at times, exasperating, even… but overall this brought me to a new level of attunement to my daughter, so that it became that (after a couple of weeks), most of the time I could ‘sense’ when she needed to go – without her actually communicating, in words or actions, anything at all.

Well, I say it is a ‘shocker’ but any EC mamas and papas will be laughing about how long it took me to find this out. All EC parents I know enthuse about how much the process helped them bond with their kids. To those of us that didn’t EC our kids from the get-go this notion seems, well, absurd. “How does helping your kid pee and poo help you bond??? ergh – gross!” But there you have it. It is true, for me, too, now I realise.

The emotional shift

I have already shared most of my top tips for potty learning here. But there is one, the importance of which has really become more obvious to me in the last few weeks, which I want to share: Cushion the way for the emotional and psychological side of this transition, as much as possible.

I am sorry to say I didn’t give this side of the process much thought, before embarking on it. I mean, I talked to her lots about where big kids and grown ups ‘go’. We watched the Elmo and other (free) potty training videos on YouTube and read books about going to the potty. We played with dolls who went on the loo but what I didn’t think to address was the loss of diapers and the diaper-changing ritual.

Now, it is clear to me that this ‘loss’ really is a big change for a little baby and I could have handled it much better. The babycentre write-up I let guide me into this process, recommended you show your child the pile of diapers you are going to use up before you do the 3-day process and explain that when those are used up, baby won’t be using diapers anymore. I literally forgot to do that step. Ooops. I focussed instead on the potty and what it was for and figured she didn’t really get what happened with the diapers, anyway. Why would she be attached to them?… and I know I was partially right, as I remain convinced she was oblivious to her bodily functions up until this process began but now I realise how important that whole ritual of changing a diaper was in her toddler life. Okay, she resisted being changed a lot (which might give you the false impression she’d be happy to be rid of it, right?)  but it was still a fulcral, familiar process in her every day that was done with mommy (or daddy). But here’s the thing, from the moment we went diaper free (and only from then) she became obsessed with role playing diaper changing – both on her bear and on herself. And that remained one of her favourite games for the last few months up until recently. Well, I remember that when kids get stuck in play, it is usually a sign they are not able to fully process what is going on. I was prepared to step in and help her with that, in play… and then it seemed she moved on from that game – just when she seems to have really gotten into the swing of potty use and she has taken to announcing that she is ‘a big girl that doesn’t wear diapers but wears knickers instead’! So, yeah, this transition IS a big deal and helping them cope with it emotionally is an important part of making it as easy and enjoyable for them, as possible. And I have learnt that it is not only about introducing a potty but about taking away diapers.

Advantages of ‘early’ potty training

1. free sexual exploration – naked time means they get to look and touch and feel what is going on, down there. They are going to do this sooner or later. It is theirs afterall. So, I reckon the sooner they get some quality naked time with themselves, the better. I’d rather this be happening at 18 months than at 4 years old, myself. Kids should feel free and at ease with their naked bodies. Hooray for diaper-free time.
2. fostering independence – I don’t believe they need to ‘ask for it’ to be ready – in some kind of crazy reversal of the extended breastfeeding put down (“if they can ask for it they are too old”); it seems many parents go with a kind of “if they can’t ask for it, they are not ready” policy on potty training. I (mostly) disagree. I think you watch your baby and (much as you did for introducing food) you can follow the signs as to whether they are ready to go independently – and ECers will tell you they can communicate to you when they need to go, from birth or soon after. Anyway, if you let the process be baby-led (once you have followed the unspoken timing) children find their way to mastering a new aspect of their physical embodiment. This brings pride, joy and a sense of confidence and independence, as it all begins to click. It is empowering – or can be (on a good day)
3. deepening the parent-child bond – I mentioned this earlier. Doing this kind of (late) EC-ish method meant I was pushed to become super attuned to my daughter’s needs. And I found myself developing what NinjaDad and I jokingly called my ‘spider senses’ whereby I often just ‘knew’ when she needed to go. I guess it was my unconscious making clever calculations based on how much she drank, how long it has been since her last pee and taking in subtle cues from changes in her body language… anyway, I was not consciously aware of how I knew, I just did. And then, of course, there were the occasional ‘ghost pees’, another phenomenon apparently well known among ECers whereby sometimes you have a vivid and very realistic sense that you are being peed on or indeed that you yourself need to pee – when in fact this is kind of like a premonition of your child’s need to go. Weird but fascinating. See what I mean? A new level of closeness and inter-connectedness developed.
4. lessening the impact on the environment – less diapers to land fill or cloth diapers to wash and fewer wipes, so many fewer wipes! It is amazing how much cleaner using a potty is compared to diapers. Gone are 10-wipe-blow-outs. Most poos I just need to use one wipe, nowadays. Amazing, really!

On balance

Each to their own, I say. I have spoken to LOTS of mums about this, now, both in person and online. My conclusion is that there isn’t only one way to potty learn gently, in a child-centered manner.

This is a confusing subject, I find… I mean, I resonate and understand arguments from both sides of the potty learning debate. I agree with ECers and early potty trainers that since babies are born with a sensitivity and even a kind of instinct to be clean, it may well be the most respectful, empathic and responsive thing to get them used to the potty as soon as possible. After all, what would you want? Who wants to sit in pee or poop all day?

On the other hand, the ‘wait until they are ready’ and ‘follow the child’s lead’ arguments also make a lot of sense to me and is totally how I am in almost every other aspect of my child’s life. We dance, play and learn together, finding what works for BOTH of us in a timing that reflects her development, her ever unfolding curiosity and her needs.

Clearly the EC/early potty training logic won out on me, this time. Plus, I had seen some pretty adversarial examples of ‘late potty training’ that put me off that approach entirely while, at the same time, I kept meeting ECers who raved about the process and really seemed to get a kick out of it. So the examples in my life were guiding me this approach, somehow.

But since then, I have met gentle, responsive parents who chose to EC convinced that is the most child-centered way to go AND other equally connection-oriented parents who waited till their kids were ‘ready’, some of whose kids, in fact, never had a single accident, when they traded in their diapers for undies. And I have met AP or gentle parents who have chosen nearly any path in between – all of them coming from a place of love, compassion and trust.

Truly, I think there are many ways to go about this that can be empowering for both parent and child, bringing the two together. This was the method that worked for us, this time (so far, at least). For us it was the perfect compromise: as early as we could do it so that she could walk to the potty and manage the process herself, independently. Any earlier (we started around 20 months) and she might have needed more help and as is she could manage the whole process (walking to the potty, etc) herself… and I didn’t want to go any longer than I had to, on account of the number of (chlorine-free) disposable diapers we were getting through. She responded well and quickly took to it, in our view (though, as we say, it was not a perfectly smooth journey).

Having said all that, would I do it this way, again – start early (from say 18 months) and go diaper-free from day one? I am not sure. I will say, I have no regrets. This was the way that felt right for us with this, our first child… but I do have ‘no accident’ envy, from the parents who told me that was the result for them… Then again, honestly I have heard ‘no accident’ stories coming from all methods, including the three day method (no accidents after day two or three) AND I have heard lots of ‘many accident’ stories from all methods, too. So, really, my conclusion is that has more to do with the child and, dare I say it, their ‘readiness’ (though not necessarily in the T. Brazelton sense) and with how much they are driving and embracing the process than necessarily with the method or the parent’s approach. So, do it your way… or better yet, do it your child’s way, at a time that works for the child and the whole family (like probably not just before a new sibling comes or when they are stressed… but a time when you can all give this your caring attention for a little while).

So, would I do it this way, again? Depends on the baby… Did I enjoy and learn a lot out of it this time: heck YES!

Open love letter to my daughter

I was “challenged” by Mother on Mother Earth to write this post, so I thought I’d take a break from the serious business of blogging (uh?…) and do this fun, easy one instead. Here is her sweet post. I have some other posts in the pipeline but life has gotten hectic, so in the meantime…

Ten things I love about you, my baby, right now: 

1. I admire and revel in your independence: I love it when you play on your own and talk to yourself for ages, often ‘re-living’ scenes or rehearsing words from that day.
2. I marvel when you ‘count’: “1, 3, 5” pointing at your fingers or at the objects, each in turn. Cracks me up!
3. I am just so impressed by how resilient you are. You seem to bounce back from most of life’s little trials (like falling off the climbing frame) so easily and get straight ‘back on that horse’. It amazes me and teaches me so much.
4. I love how much you make me laugh. You are very serious and intense much of the time, figuring things out. You often also like to take your time getting to know new people and places, taking it all in first, but when you are in a fun, light-hearted, playful place, girl, you are hilarious – and your laughter is totally infections. And on that note…
5. I think it is the best when we get into a ‘giggle loop’ – we just look at each other and laugh… and then keep setting each other off, for minutes at a time. We have been doing this since you were a little baby!
6. I find your hair beautiful – it is brown but reflects auburn in the light. It is just like mine but I never appreciated it on me. On you I just think it is the most precious, wondrous stuff!
7. I love to see your character emerge and you seem to be so fastidious and like things ‘just so’. I love how you put your shoes away when we get home (unprompted) or how you put books back on the shelf at the bookshop and library. Figuring out form-and-function definitely seems to be one of your highest joys and you appear to like to know how things work socially, too. You want to understand the ‘rules’ and then demonstrate that you totally get it, I mean, already at 18 months you love saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ (and/or signing it) despite the fact that we have never pushed that, we just model it. I think you think it is ‘just what is done’ :)
8. I am so impressed at how switched on you are and how often you continue to surprise me by how much you understand and can communicate. You language skills have been blowing me away!
9. You have the cutest bum. I love the way you walk with a little waddle of your sweet bum-bum!
10. I adore how imaginative you are and, for example, that you turned the basketball net into a swing for your koala. Freaking fabulous!

Now I am supposed to tag 5 mommy-bloggers to do the same (each of you is asked to list 10 things you love about your kid(s) then tag 5 mothers/bloggers to do the same). Here are my five:

• Amo-isms
  
• Fabulous Mama Chronicles
• Tara Mauger: Mumpreneur
• Hobo Mama
• Natural Mama

I have tried to chose mammas who are comfortable with blogging about their own kids, but let me know if this ain’t for you and I’ll re-nominate :)

Related articles

• A Letter To My Daughter (familyphotographyandfood.wordpress.com)

It’s a sign that it is working: a baby’s language development is amazing

Image via Wikipedia

You guys know I am a big baby sign language aficcionada. It started because I found out how good it was for little ones to be able to express themselves as soon as they are able to (which is way before they are able to form ‘words’) – it is proven to improve children’s IQs (statistically speaking) even measured years after signing has stopped. In the short-term it reduces toddler frustration and tantrums by, conversely, empowering them to communicate the things they love and ask for what they want.

That is how it started, because it was a ‘good thing to do’… I continued ‘cos I found myself having sooo much fun with it. I am a full-time mom. This is what I do and I really enjoyed getting into the challenge and the to-and-fro of learning sign language with my little girl. Now she has well over 100 signs and we can have little conversations. But the new development is this, today (at just shy of 15 months) she signed her first three-word ‘sentence’. Cognitively that is a huge landmark (which usually doesn’t come for non-singing babies until they are at least 18 months old and often older).

Two word sentences of Anya’s (often combining signs and ‘words’) include, among others:

• More Music
• Bird (in) Tree
• Where’s Dada?
• Mama (has a) Hat
• Milk, Please!

Now her three word sentence was:

• Doggy Outside Walking

How cool is that? We were at the dog park and she obviously thought she’d describe the scene.

She is still relying mostly on signs but a) let me remind you sign language is a real language and b) more importantly, she is communicating and getting her ideas, priorities, needs and wants across. And we get a real window of insight into the young toddler’s mind and just how very much she is grasping all the time.

Meanwhile she does have a few spoken words and her repertoire is slowly increasing. But, as you all know, by far my favourite word right now is: Mama!

I have a new name and my name is Mama!

Woohoo! So, pretty much the day after that last post about Anya calling both of us ‘dada’ Anya did it, she called me Mama

with a point and everything. She has been at it ever since. It is like her new favourite word and if she doesn’t see me she toddles around the house looking for me saying “mama, mama”.

I can see, from looking at some of my friends with older kids, how this could get old. She could actually wear my name thin by using it and wanting me tooooo much… but for now, I am enjoying every ‘mamamama’. I just love it! It brings a smile to my face, joy to my heart and a hug to my daughter every time. Yay, hooray and hazah!

 

—

Old photo ‘cos, well, I don’t have that many photos of Anya and me, together. Must make more :)

The other dada (or: when, oh, when will she call me Mama?)

On the other hand, at 14 months, Anya still doesn’t call me Mama! For the last six months, I have been dada (along with the other dada). She knows the difference, she’ll point at the right one of us in response to our ‘names’ but she calls us both dada. If she sees a photo of the two of us together, she we’ll point at K. and say ‘dada’ and point at me and say ‘dada’ while signing milk. She gets it… she just doesn’t bother using the other title. To be fair she also calls random people on the street dada, quite often. We figure it is just her word for person… although I will say she says it with way more zest and enthusiasm when greeting her dad from work. ‘DAADAAAAA!!!’

This is quite an emotional subject. I mean we all melt (I can only assume) at the sound of our own child calling our name, especially for the first time. Apparently it is common for this to happen, for a baby to pick one name (either mama or dada) and call both parents that for a time. Thankfully I have met plenty of other moms who say the exact same thing happened at their house – it was dadadada all the time. Once, I even ran into somebody I didn’t know at the shop and her kid was saying ‘dada’. I said that is my daughter’s favourite word, too. She got really quite upset as she told me her baby only said ‘dada’ and not ‘mama’ yet. I rambled off something about evolution and the necessity to ensure the baby bonds with the father first, hence why most moms encourage their babies to say ‘dada’ early on, not to mention that in all languages the word for father is composed of some of the first sounds that babies naturally babble by themselves – even deaf ones – such as baba, papa, dada. Most dads I know will gleefully claim any of those as their ‘name’ if they hear the baby saying it… or at least the mom will claim it for them. There is also research that proves (?) first babies look more like their fathers, again, an evolved trait biologically engineered to keep dads around for longer – especially when things get tough and mothers really need their support. Anyway, I digress, the point is it kind of hurts when your kid doesn’t say your name. Does he/she love dada more?  I got over it. I have rationalised it away, as you can tell, and I figure she’ll say mama sooner or later and in the meantime her dada gets to enjoy all the attention, fun and closeness of hearing Anya shout for him when he arrives home from work everyday.

I’ll share an early secret with you, though, Anya has started saying mamamama a lot (a bit like when she was first learning to babble it) and she looks at me for a reaction (maybe ‘cos she knows that sound will get a reaction) but it fills my heart with joy and my spirit with hope. Could it be soon?

Baby Sign Language: breakthroughs and bloopers

Image via Wikipedia

Anya has over 100 signs. She amazes me. On top of that she has ‘words’ (mostly sound effects) for another 20 or so things – most of those are for animals, food and things that go vrooom, really. Actual words are still few – four or five, perhaps, and those are all baby words, not full grown-up versions. Still that means that at 14 months she has a combined vocab of over 130 words. My favourite sound-word, at the moment, is ‘tata’ which is her attempt at bicicleta (bicycle in Portuguese).

My favourite sign? oh I have so many… I love that she has signed ‘Thank you’ when I gave her something and I think it is adorable when she signs ‘heart’ with added ‘thump, thump’ sound effect, but, I have got to say the sign for ‘balloon’ is sooo sweet, too, as she fills her little cheeks, blows and expands her hands out .

While I am proud of every one of her signs, I also laugh my head off when she gets them wrong. Recently it amused me no end that I gave her some humus and she did the sign for cow (yes, mama kind of said the word ‘moo’). I also like some of the word confusion like when I say sauce in Portuguese (molho) she points at my eye (olho – in Portuguese!)

Signs she does get right include not only the obvious like ‘airplane’, ‘sheep’ (complete with ‘baaah’) and ‘peas’ but also more abstract concepts like ‘open’, ‘more’ and ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ (and she mostly gets those right – she signs ‘hot’ when her food is steaming… or when we walk by a fridge – it is a work in progress, but she does get that it refers to a temperature change). The whole process of learning is incredible to watch and I am ever so grateful to Baby Signs (which is basically ASL which some smart alecs had the insight of applying to pre-verbal babies) for showing me how much my child understands at this age. I suppose she would understand roughly the same number of words and ideas if she wasn’t signing but she wouldn’t be able to show me that she got it (like someone laid up in bed who can hear and reason, but not talk or write – aaarrggh)… although in truth it is likely that signs are also a catalyst propelling her to learn more and more, buoyed by her early success in communicating and, most importantly, getting what she wants, whether it is to be picked up, to eat raisins (in particular) or to tell mama there is a squirrel over there, in the distance.  I swear I saw a light go on, over her head, when she realised she could get her needs met by expressing herself to those who love her.

I find myself particularly impressed by how patient Anya is with me when I misinterpret one of her signs – she’ll just point at the correct thing to help me figure it out or sign it again with sounds until I get it. She’ll also helpfully disambiguate signs that are similar. For example her sign for ‘all done’ (waving two hands) becomes ever so similar to her sign for ‘music’ (pretty much waving two hands). If we are at meal time and she starts waving her hands, I might say ‘you want music?’ and she’ll cleverly (if a bit frantically and desperately) start signing ‘wash hands’ and pulling at her bib. Oh, you are all done! The opposite is also true, if I guess ‘all done’ when she means ‘music’ she’ll helpfully point at the stereo while swaying her body side-to-side, so I get her meaning.

She is now doing two and even three word sentences – by combining signs and sounds. This milestone isn’t usually reached until the child is about 18 months, as I understand it, if they are not signing. Sentences, if you’ll allow me to call them that, include things like: ‘more’ ‘rice cakes’ (both signed); ‘where is’ (sign) ‘dada’ (sound); ‘book – baby – sleep’ (all signed) when describing the book with the sleeping baby on the cover; or ‘music’ (sign) ‘woof-woof’ (sound) when she wants me to put on the song about the doggy. She knows what she wants – and thanks to signs she can be very specific in asking for it.

Zipping it – Anya learns a new trick!

Anya has figured out zips. It is just so cute to see those little fingers so nimbly pulling one side of the cloth taught and carefully, with a perfect little pincer grasp hold the zip and pull it down. Amazing… and so grown-up!

via Flickr”]

What is your highlight of the day? My daughter walked!…

Kai and I often play this game: at the end of the day we ask each other ‘what has been your highlight of today? what has been your lowlight? and what if anything have  you learnt?’ Today, I want to share mine with you.

1. My highlight: Anya took a few steps unsupported. Little things make your heart leap for joy. She actually took her first steps a week or so ago when Kai and I were staying with her Chinese grandparents in England. She took a couple of steps without holding onto anything a few times on a few days in England, but since I have been in Portugal, visiting my parents she hasn’t done it at all… until today. I was feeling a bit grumpy ‘cos it was way past Anya’s travel-schedule bedtime (which, believe it or not is midnight – which afterall is 5pm in San Fran) and she was showing no signs of giving in to tiredness any time soon. Then she started ‘walking’ and it was all worth while. Woohooo!
2. My lowlight: actually today was a lovely day so I’ll have to scratch around for one. My parents, Anya and I went to the incredible Lisbon aquarium. It really is the most fabulous one I have ever seen. Anya enjoyed it, too. It rained a lot as we were driving home, proper thunder storm and everything but I have got to say, that was just awe-inspiring and beautiful, too. So my only lowlight would be, you know, sparks of family tension – nothing major, just wear and tear from years of different personalities rubbing against each other. By and large it was a great family-fun day, though.
3. My lesson of the day: remember the Universe is taking care of EVERYTHING. Everything is taken care of – even little babies’ bedtimes. Why get stressed that she is up a few minutes later than I had planned? After all, as they say, if you want to give God a laugh, tell  him your plans… and with any luck He’ll surprise you with a special gift that makes ‘breaking your plans’ the best plan of all.

What are your highlights for today?

How my daughter continues to blow my little mind with her little hands

Mommy’s swelling pride means the first thing I want to share with you all is Anya’s signing progress. I just find this whole ‘human learning to communicate’ journey endlessly fascinating. Anya seems to pick things up so quickly. I have to tell someone or I’ll burst! I try not to go on about it (too much) in person, in mommy groups or the like… but yeah, with you guys I let it out, to get the bragging out of my system, so to speak. Anyway, we all know all babies are amazing and to each of us our own baby is the best – of course – and to each of us it is, of course, true. Here is my truth:

At one year old (yes Anya has turned one!! – awesome) Anya now has over 50 signs. She went through another cognitive-development spurt, clearly. For a couple of weeks she was picking up signs at a rate of up to 2 a day – just fantastic to watch. She has also been building her repertoire of ‘words’ (with sounds for sleeping, pig and, the old classic: fart) so that brings her overall vocab to about 60 concepts.

Baby sign language improves our life in a myriad of small and great ways. One of my fave signs is ‘music’. When I am out with Anya in the baby-carrier she’ll sign for me to sing to her and then, when I stop, she signs for ‘more’. I love it. It is like having an audience cheer and shout encore. I also really enjoy that she calls food ‘mmm’ (not a sign, I know, but cute). There are not many people who greet my food with so much enthusiasm. Got to love that. Other favourite signs include computer, ‘there is none’/empty, tree and sleep (as in ‘dada is sleeping on the bed and snoring like a pig’ – I kid you not, she has pretty much signed that whole sentence… or at least that sentiment).

Anya also now has combinations of signs like ‘more milk’. Or she’ll combine sign and sounds by doing something like sign ‘where is’ and add the word ‘dada’. Cute and clever, no?

The other thing I think is fab about signing is the insight it gives me into the thought processes of a pre-verbal baby. For example, if we are indoors playing and Anya suddenly signs ‘bird’ it can take me a few seconds to realise she is saying she just heard a bird, outside. Who knew babies can hear and identify things out of sight, even when seemingly concentrating on an activity at hand?

So you can see, I am more and more sold on this signing thing. It is a lot of work, or at least it was to get it going in the start. It kind of has its own momentum now and is just fun, so that keeps us motivated. But I really enjoy it and I can see what a kick Anya gets from it, each time we respond appropriately to a request or communication of hers. She gets a real glint of joy and recognition in her eye. I can’t imagine not signing now and I find myself wondering how other moms communicate to their babies: how do they know what they want, what excites them, what they are thinking about? I know they make do but it seems so much more practical and rewarding to sign, now that I am into it. I’ll fully admit I do it as much for me as for Anya but she is clearly getting a lot out of it and I have read the research results: this stuff has positive impact on learning for life, not just as toddlers. I am lucky I stumbled across signing and grateful I stuck with it. Thanks California for your crazy hippy parenting ways!