Yahoo! has a good post covering some of the topics to consider while posting about your kid. Useful stuff - cause you can’t be too paranoid.

The boy likes feeding dogs their treats.  No matter what size the dog, he likes feeding them their treats.  The only dogs we let him do this with are dogs we know very well.  Still, he’s careful with his fingers and finds it pretty exciting.

This weekend, he was feeding my father’s dogs their cookies.  The dogs are a bit taller than him, and much heavier, and still quite young and excitable. There is a lot of action going on.  But the boy still wants to do it.  He even makes sure to feed each of the dogs.  Feeding just one isn’t acceptable - he wants to make sure they both get a treat from him.  To the point that he’ll deny one dog a treat, which is a little risky given their relative sizes.  But things worked out okay.

Right - the language part.  We’ve taught him “all done” as both a sign and now he says it as well. But it’s something that has always been conveyed by him about his feeding time (he’s all done) or by us, about something he wants (watermelon’s all done!)

Though, over the weekend, with these dogs running around him wanting more treats, and in the center of their tornado, he was in the middle shouting “cookies all done” and making his sign for “all done” as well.  It was nice to seem him shift his point of view for the phrase…though, the dogs didn’t really get the message.

Sal’s had this Elmo and Friends Look and Find book for a while. He picked it up again this morning to read so we sat down. And we talked about the book for probably 5 minutes, before even opening it up. The cover is just that interesting.

I helped me realize how good these “look and find” books are. There are just a lot of things going on on every page - that there are endless conversations one can have about the page. And that’s the beauty of the book. Sometimes I’ve found it difficult to strike up a conversation with Sal, as I don’t feel as comfortable with the one way communication.  Though this book has enough things going on in it that it is really easy for me to feel comfortable talking to him about the pages.  Let’s look at the juggling bugs or the dinosaur floaty and how that can help when swimming or let’s count the ladybugs on the page.

It also is crazy to see how perceptive he is. There is a parade page and many things are going on. There is a lady with a fruit hat - that has bananas in it. So we’ve talked about her crazy banana hat in the past. But one day, when I was asking him where the banana was, he found a guy on the street watching the parade, eating a banana. Turns out there’s a bunch of bananas on the page - and discovering them is part of the joy of re-reading this book over and over again.

Counting. Colors. Animals. Activities. All covered in this book - and it has been a fun process watching Sal develop different interests as we’ve been reading the book. Today, he pointed out that me and Grover both wear glasses and we talked a bit about that.

But even better, I’m looking forward to what comes up next time we read the book…or, since Amazon’s having a buy 3 get 1 free sale - we’re getting more look and find books. Cars, Finding Nemo (I’m figuring that will have lots of sea animals in it - which should be a kick) and well, Batman seems a little too early for the guy, but there’s a Dora look and find as well as a Disney friends one. Though he hasn’t seen the movies Cars or Finding Nemo, we figure the books will be interesting enough on their own.

Bet he will think so too.

Tags: parenting,, child, development

We discovered a month and a half ago that Sal could count on his own. Sal’s aunt told us - telling Sal he had to count to 5 before she’d help him jump off the little ledge area. We then found out from Sal’s nanny that he’s been counting for longer. It never occurred to us to ask Sal to count on his own. One of those moments where you really feel out of it as a parent. She had recorded Sal counting to 10 for her kids since it was cute to hear Sal alternately whisper and shout the different numbers.
In any case - counting has been an interesting adventure. It looks like it will be an ongoing process. Besides sesame street - we began counting w/ Sal when we discovered his love of playing hide and seek (and cheating while playing hide and seek… but that’s a different story). We’d have Sal cover his eyes, then have him repeat the numbers. He loved playing hide and seek over and over even though we probably only have about 6 hiding places that we’d hide in. Counting was really just a rote set of words he could string together.
Since then Sal’s taken to counting things - but he’s been starting to leave out numbers. The five was the first to go - then 6. Sometimes he even skips the 4. Seven, eight, nine and ten are strong finishers for him. His one to one correspondence is solid to 3, and sometimes higher, sometimes not. We’re trying to re-introduce 5 by having him count to 5 if he wants to do little fly-jumps while holding his hands. He’s stubborn though about not wanting to include the 5… We’ve read it’s pretty common in kids to start omitting numbers. He does like to count things and finish it with a hearty “ah ah ah!” a la the count from sesame street.
Number recognition was not something we were that into introducing to Sal but we found out a couple months ago that Sal could recognize the numbers. Looking at his dad’s t-shirt he read off the “K2″. It’s funny how much Sal loves looking at his dad’s t-shirts, and even his own clothing. Made me even think that it’d be a good little business selling mom and dad shirts with things that their kids will enjoy to look at and later read. When Sal was a baby - he loved a shirt that had a Yahoo! smiley on it. Simple - but very compelling to his little baby mind. We found out later that the nanny does little number games with him - like helping her put together the letter/number kitchen mat, allowing him to hit the microwave buttons if he pushes the right numbers, using the little golf kit and asking him to pull out particular holes from the bag that we stored the kit from. Something else I’ve recently discovered is that Sal enjoys it when I take the big foam numbers and letters and have them talk to him on what they are - like grabbing the A and making it dance in front of him - and saying “I’m the A! I say “AHHHH!” and having it run away. He’ll copy these little games as well.

We’re trying to slow play his number knowledge - bringing it up when he seems interested, stopping when he’s lost interest, figuring out what motivates him like games like hide and seek and having him count off before we fly him up in the air. He seems to learn things on his own terms - and we think that’s the way it should be. He’s surprised us up to now with what he’s picked up by this - no reason to stop this now.

We’d like to go visit the Georgia Aquarium someday.  Since we have family out there, it might be someday soon.

Until then though, our nanny’s found work around. She’s taken “field trips” to the Ranch 99 market near our house.  It’s an asian market.  Lots of live seafood available. And well, they let him play with the clams and he loves watching the crabs climb all over each other…

He’s picking things up quickly now. Sometimes too quickly (my bad habits).  The strange thing though, is that we’re already not sure where he’s picking these things up from.

We play the game where something is hidden in one of my hands and he needs to guess which hand it is in.  Quickly after that, he was willing to play the part where he hides something in his hands.  His little joke on the game though, is sometimes when I guess the right hand, he shows me the empty hand and laughs. Okay, he’s a little crazy already - but that was expected.

What wasn’t expected was one morning when we were playing, he hid the items behind his back, instead of having both hands out front.  I asked my wife. She didn’t teach him that. I asked the nanny when she came by - and nope, she didn’t teach him that either.  So that was kind of interesting.

Then two days later, he added some flair - as he’d rotate his hands around - sort of like a disco dance move or a false start call in football. I’m guessing this was meant to confuse me - as to which hand would have the treat.  Again, no one taught him that move.

It is a beautiful thing, seeing his creativity blossom.  But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a little bit scary too.

Sal’s best friend had an accident the other day - he fell trying to get out of his crib.  He’s 19 months as well.  Poor guy bent and cracked his humerus bone - taking him out of commission for a while from his toddler activities.  It was a big wake up call for us and something we can all learn from. 

I had heard from other moms that it’s a good idea to put a tent on top of the crib - even before they start climbing - so that it can be encorporated into the bed time ritual and that they’re used to it even when they get to the age where they might start trying to climb out.  We waited despite the good advice.  As Sal grew older I noticed he was a climber so  I bought one - but never got around to putting it on.  Well - it’s on now.  Wish we could have warned Sal’s friend too.  The crib tents are pretty straight forward to put on and add a great peace of mind.  It’s worth the money and the time to invest in - one of those safety things that just doesn’t get as much press for child safety.

The other big lesson that was learned by our friend’s family was what a difference going to a children’s hospital vs. a regular hospital makes.  For anything serious where time is of the essence and decisions need to be made quickly - it’s best to go to a children’s hospital or a pediatric emergency department where they will be able to act quickly and know what is best for a child rather then treating it as if it were the adult equivalent.  Sal’s friend got outfitted w/ a hard cast.  Later they found out from the pediatric specialist that this put him at risk for nerve damage, and trying to remove a hard cast will be another danger for futher injury -it’s a scary thing for anyone to go through - but hard to explain to a toddler that they will be ok and they need to stay still so that he doesn’t hurt himself more.  Kids are different, and when they’re hurt it’s an even scarier thing to go through since they don’t understand everything that’s going on - only that they hurt.   A children’s hospital will know what to consider, and be a lot more kid friendly to ease some of those fears.

So seriously - take some time to figure out where your local children’s hospital is.  Note the contact information.  If you’re in the ambulance - tell the driver to take you to the children’s hospital.  All of this were some hard earned lessons and could save you a lot of unnecessary grief that our friends went through.   

I’m one of those parents that loves to do classes w/ her kid.  I worry about it ever becoming overwhelming, he is only 19 months old, but so far I’m pretty sure we’re both having a blast.  There seems to be a lot of classes geared to lil’ns.    Music classes has been an interesting search for me.   I feel lucky that my mother had a background in music.  She studied it in college and encorporated music into our lives.  i’ve been hoping to impart even a small part of that to Sal.

We started classes when Sal was about 6 months old.  He was starting to really engage in the world, could sit and starting to crawl and explore - it seemed like a good time to be able to get into classes.  One of the first classes I searched for was a music class.   People typically look a little confused on why I’d bring such a young baby to a music class, but once I explain it is really more for the exposure, movement, and time together - people seem to understand I’m not looking for Sal to come out of the class to be a music virtuoso.

Still, you’d think all classes are about the same to someone this age.  They’ve got a teacher, their songs, some simple instruments, and a bunch of children.   Children’s programs seem to love to throw around a couple buzz words about cognitive development, bonding, motor skills.  I’ve gotten so used to it I pretty much skim it quickly to see if there is anything outside the ordinary.

Today, instead of reading first about the class - I experienced it instead.  We had previously taken Sal to Kindermusik.  He enjoyed it well enough, got familiar w/ the songs, loved playing on the instruments, but I always had a slight discomfort with the class that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.    Today we tried Music Together, and I felt like this class, taking similar elements, had a couple key fundamental difference that I really appreciated.

The class was a mix of ages.  There were babies and kids all the way up to 4 year olds.  Kindermusik had us sectioned by age - which - although I can see how it may feel like you can “specialize” for the age, I think it left a lot to be desired as Sal grew a little older for the baby group.  I like the Montesorri approach of mixed ages - Sal seems to find fascination in both kids younger and older.  I think he gets a chance to pick stuff up from the older kids as well.  This was a nice change of pace. 

Since we were in a mixed age class, I think it was easier to keep to a philosophy of not forcing the children to participate by moving them for them.  For once, we were in a music class where we weren’t trying to force the kids to do certain movements.  The teacher was clear on just modelling, and allowing the kids to choose on their own what they wanted to do.  Some kids chose to watch, some kids chose to mirror the actions, and some chose to run around.  In all cases it was fine.  The movements weren’t overly complicated either - no complicated dance steps that a lil’n, if they so chose to follow, would have a hard time encorporating.

And the music - all catchy, repetitive songs.  Not all of them had words, not all of them had rhythms.  By breaking down some of the elements it made it easier to focus on those elements.  The songs w/out words but just sounds like “la la la, ba ba ba” were a lot easier for Sal to participate in. 

Afterwards - I read some more of the classes literature.  Instead of just using the standard jargon - it actually had some words about children picking up music.  I liked that.  It also talked about how parents are the most important role model - and watching and listening to the parents participating was the strongest reinforcer - more then doing the movements for the child.  Made sense. 

I don’t know if my experience of Kindermusik is representative of it or not, but just going by the materials and the thought that went into it - I can say I prefer the philosophy of Music Together and it looked like Sal did too.

I frequent a bulletin board geared towards toddlers who hit their milestones early.  It’s not so much that I think Sal is an early milestone toddler - I think overall he may be slightly ahead - but nothing like what some of the kids on this board achieve so early.   The real reason I do it is because I’ve found a lot of creative moms who are struggling to keep up w/ their bright kids - who have found things that have sparked their lil’ns interest.   Things like Cariboo, the Letter Factory, and Starfall all came from reading these boards.

A debate that I notice that comes up on the board every couple of months is what happens for gifted vs. hothoused kids.   Hothousing commonly refers to tactics that parents use to push their kids to learn early - unlike gifted kids who’s natural curiousity and brightness helps them pick up on many advanced concepts.  The mom’s on the board are clearly against hot housing, some relishing in the fact that hothoused kids typically lose their ”advantage” when they get to 3rd or 4th grade.

It’s an interesting line - when are you encouraging your child’s development vs. when are you artificially pushing them to “recite” concepts that they are not ready to understand?   I struggle with this since I want Sal to meet his potential and I know the area we live in is intensely competitive, yet,  when do you cross the line?

Right now we try to let Sal decide what he wants, but we definitely influence his choices and what he gets exposed to.  

Sal’s 18 months today. Lately - his letter recognition has sky rocketted. He went from learning the sounds of all the letters watching the letter factory to now excitedly pointing out letters and telling us what they are. He can’t pass a McDonald’s sign w/out yelling out a big “MMMMMMM” even though he doesn’t care much for the food he’s tried (the toys though - that’s a different story). He’s got most of the letters down and it’s been really fun watching him take this leap.

We never really used flash cards. Couldn’t seem to capture Sal’s attention. We completely agreed with the statement of “stop before they get bored” and that seemed to be pretty much instantaneously w/ Sal. Every kid’s going to be different. For Sal - there were a couple things that clicked for him.

I think the first thing that clicked for him was his letter factory dvd. Seriously the best 8 bucks we’ve spent. Immediately Sal was imitating the letters and although we’d limit his watching - he was eager to see more of his pal Tad. The dvd is really well done, perhaps a little repetitious - but great for a lil’n. Even when he wasn’t watching the DVD, he’d have a great time sitting in the car or while we went on walks singing the letter songs together as he supplied the letter sounds.

Whenever we go out to a store - we try to keep him entertained by finding things that he likes. Amongst those things has been letters. Any grocery store is filled with all sorts of items we can point out, look at letters, pictures to talk about - it makes for a better trip if he’s engaged rather then getting antsy. Not that it always works - but it’s one trick we’ll use. It’s also what we end up doing when we go out to eat and he’s reached his sitting down limit. We end up taking turns walking around outside. The bright neon signs are fun to point out and Sal seems to get a real satisfaction in identifying things (not just letters).

Another fun activity for Sal has been playing on the computer on starfall. Since Sal’s seen us on the computer so much - he was bound to be curious and we’ve found this to be one of his favorite sites. We even have to negotiate the number of letters that we will do. Sal’s favorite phrase right now is “one more!”. This site does an amazing job of teaching phonics. We haven’t progressed pass the letters portion, but I figure as he gets older we’ll be hitting the other parts of the site.

A bonus find for us that turned out to be fun for Sal was our letter puzzle mat. I mainly put the mat as a padding for his play area in the kitchen. It helped w/ cleanup - although - it’s big and bulky and Sal loved taking the letters apart. The maintenance can be a bit of a pain, having to take apart the mat to properly clean under it - but we recently found out that Sal’s great at helping to put the mat together by asking him for the letters. Since he’s a toddler - he loves to walk over - pick up a big letter and bring it back. It combines some of his favorite activities - identifying, and carrying things that are big (but luckily not heavy). So - although it’s a little bit of a pain to clean up under - it’s turned into another activity that Sal enjoys.

And finally - the refridgerator magnets. We got the LeapFrog Refrigerator Magnets as a gift when he was 1 year old. At first - they were just fun to stick up on the fridge. We’d play the magnets for him - and he’d smile and play with the buttons - but that was about it. The fridge magnets have grown with him as he’s learned to play the magnets on his own - each a little song about the letter sung by his pal Tad.

We’ve tried not to push him or to spend a lot of his time for letter learning - really just encorporating little bits here and there through the day in things he enjoys. It’s amazing what they can learn with some fun and some time.