Signing With Baby

When I was in high school I was required to take a language class.

I attempted Spanish and well I barely passed that class.
Even now I can only say a few things in Spanish.

Being homeschooled gave me more language options.
My mom did a unit study on American Sign Language.
I instantly fell in love with the language and excelled in ASL.

My plans for after high school were to go to Rochester Institute of Technology 

for their interpreter’s program. God had far different plans for me. 

I wasn’t accepted to RIT for their ASLIE program.
I ended up taking an online course that was very inexpensive and worked at a local clothing store.
I ended up getting engaged and we had plans to get married the following year.
Instead of going off to college like I had planned I got married and have since had two wonderful babies.

I had a cousin growing up that was the third child in her family and she refused to talk.
She could talk but she refused to. She would make grunts and her two older siblings would do all of the talking for her.
The problem was bother of her older sisters went to school during the day.
It was very frustrating for my cousin and my aunt as they had no way to communicate with each other.
So her parents began doing baby signs with her.
Signs like “more, please, thank you, all done, potty, cracker, cheese, drink, milk, juice, water, and play” made a world of difference in their family.

I knew even before I was pregnant that I would do sign language with my kids.
Between seeing the frustration of so many of the kids I babysat and my cousin I knew they had to be a better way.

When my oldest was probably 10 months old my best friend babysat for us.
We had already been signing for a while with him and when she was feeding him dinner he was able to tell her that he wanted “More Milk” in sign.
He was able to completely communicate his needs and wants with her without either of them getting frustrated.
We continued to sign with him consistently and when we took him for his one year check-up his vocabulary was double what was expected.

This time around I honestly hadn’t been nearly as consistent in working on signing with my baby. It’s funny how different things are when you have two kids.
But recently I stared signing “more” with Bug.
At 8.5 months old he is now able to sign “more” during meal times to let me know when he is ready for the next bite of food instead of the whining/screaming/hitting his highchair tray. It really only took maybe 3 meal times and a couple of snack times for him to get it.

The next word I plan on teaching him is “all done.”
I would really rather him sign all done instead of spitting his food back out at us.

Did or do you sign with your babies?
Is it something you want to do but aren’t sure where to start?

You can go to your local library, they usually have great resources on baby sign books.
My local library has a wonderful set of baby board books by Lora Heller
There are also great free resources online such as ASLPro.com's baby dictionary and 

http://www.babysignlanguage.com/ has a ton of great things as well!

Be sure to hop and over and check out all of this great information on The Parenting Patch blog:
Parenting Patch: baby sign language
Parenting Patch: Poppy Signs Milk

Grow Your Stash Bash!

If you’ve looked around the blog much lately, you’ll see that I have been posting quite a bit about cloth diapers. We are a cloth diapering family. I love talking about cloth diapers whenever the opportunity arises. Including in the ladies bathroom at the County Fair while my husband waits and wonders what happened to us.

Parents decide to use cloth diapers for a multitude of reasons. Some choose cloth diapers because it is kinder to the environment. Others choose cloth diapers because of the long term cost savings. Some families, though, are truly struggling: they are part of the one in three families in the United States and Canada who have to choose between buying disposable diapers and buying food or paying rent. Now before you pass judgment and state that a couple shouldn’t have kids before they can afford diapers you should know that even hard working families can struggle.

While you might know that we are a cloth diapering family; You might not know that we were one of the 33% of families that didn’t know how they were going to diaper their little one, while still paying the bills and having food to eat.

Cloth diapering was a no brainer for us as far as expense. We bought a very modest stash of 24 one size pocket diapers. Knowing we had enough diapers to diaper our son from birth to potty training was a huge weight off our shoulders.

Regardless of why these families choose cloth, the start up costs can often be intimidating. For that 33%, the start up costs can be crippling and seemingly insurmountable. That's where Cloth for a Cause, Cloth Diaper Addicts, Viva Veltoro, and Leettle Baby... and the Build Your Stash Bash comes into play.

Cloth for a Cause is a brand new Canadian charity. They've been operating since 2011 with a simple mission: to help those 33% get their babies in diapers. In the year and a half that they've been open, Cloth for a Cause has expanded from one little chapter in Prince George to fourteen stretching across Canada. They've helped nearly 150 families get their babies in cloth. Last month, Cloth for a Cause became a legal charity. Not only does that mean that their ability to help struggling families has grown, it also means that their need for assistance has grown! You can help by donating to Cloth for a Cause through their PayPal account or by sending a cloth diaper donation to one of their chapters. (If you live in Canada and are making a donation of $20 or greater, they can issue a tax receipt!) If you're near one of our local chapters, you can donate material goods and cash directly to the chapter. If you're not and you'd like to donate some diapers, our Nova Scotia chapter has a large need for services!

Now for the Grow Your Stash part of the Grow Your Stash Bash!



Several wonderful companies have teamed up to put together to help us put together two awesome packages to Grow Your Stash!
Package #1 is open to Canada and the US:
One Best Bottom Shell and two medium inserts from Nicki's Diapers
One Glow Bug Spectrum Package (six diapers, eight inserts, and a wetbag)
One newborn diaper by Diapers by Chris
One pocket diaper and insert from Hunny Bunny Baby Wear
One fabulous bag of Rockin Green detergent!
One AppleCheeks swim diaper!


Package #2 is open to Canada only:
A Thirsties Package (Thirstiest Prefold, a Thirsties Stay Dry insert, a Thirsties Duo Cover, and a Snappi pack) and a Rockin Green sample pack, all nicely bundled in a Cozy Bums shopping bag.
A fifty dollar gift certificate to Lagoon Baby
One Glow Bug Spectrum Package (six diapers, eight inserts, and a wetbag)
One pocket diaper and insert from Hunny Bunny Baby Wear
One fabulous bag of Rockin Green detergent!
One AppleCheeks swim diaper!
One diaper and wetbag from EcoWays!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bummas Baby Cloths Giveaway!

A sweet blogger friend has a giveaway going on currently.
She has allowed me to post the rafflecopter for you to enter it here but be sure to go to her blog to read the full review!


http://www.blogsfromasinglemom.blogspot.com/2013/04/reviewgiveaway-bummas-baby-cloths.html

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A coffee date

If you were to come over to my house you would find coffee ready and waiting.
There few more dishes in the sink than I would like, a mound of laundry waiting to be folded,
and my son’s toys scattered across the living room floor.

I would tell you how much I love to do crafts and drink coffee;
and that I wish I had more time and money for both.
I would share stories of when I ventured off on a missions trip to Africa
or how I met my husband when I was 13.
You would see my oldest son running around in the backyard with no shoes on
pretending to fight dinosaurs with a stick.

We would probably have to pause our conversation more than a few times for me to help Monkey to go the bathroom, change Bug’s diaper, grab snacks and drinks, discipline, answer about a million ‘why?’ questions, or whatever other parenting moment may arise.

I would tell you how much I love this crazy life I am living
and that I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I would be telling you the truth in all of that but there is so much more under the surface.
Deep inside, within secrete places of my heart, there are numerous hopes, dreams, fears, and desires.

If we were sitting at my picnic table today enjoying a good cup of coffee together
I would begin to tell you that these things are weighing heavily on my heart right now.
I honestly am struggling, fighting between holding onto these things tightly and giving them up to God.

I worry about my sons.
Raising two Godly boys in a sex crazed world terrifies me.
Keeping their innocence in a world that threatens to steal it from them every chance it gets.
Protecting them from danger.
Protecting them from all of the violence in our world as of recently.
I would own up to the fact that I’m sure I let my oldest watch way too much TV.
I would tell you that I try to turn on the local Christian radio station for their Noon report to catch the news while I’m making our lunch
but quickly turn it off or bring the volume down low when my son comes into the room.

I worry about my husband.
I would tell you how desperately my sweet husband and I want to have
our own custom printing business.
I would tell you that we are not completely sure what the next step is.
I would tell you how proud of him I am for working so hard and doing his
best to keep me home with our boys.
I would confess that some of my favorite times together are
when we’re driving home late at night from friend’s or family’s,
the boys asleep in the backseat, and my husband and I just talk.
We share our hopes, dreams, and ideas with each other and it makes
me feel emotionally connected to him in a special way.

I would tell you how God is working on my heart in ways that I am not always a fan of.
I have gone through so many changes over the last four years.
Things that didn’t matter or bother me four years ago now matter and bother me and I get embarrassed thinking of how bad things were back then.

I would tell you that I have dreams of opening up an etsy shop by the end of this year.
I would tell you that I am praying that God opens up some big doors for my husband and me.

I would share with you my struggles as a wife and mother.
I would tell you that even though these past few years have been some of the loneliest, isolated years in my life they have also been the most rewarding.

I would tell you how I am terrible at making sure I take care of myself.
I am quick to take care of everyone else’s needs but not always my own.
I desperately want to start running but am terrified of trying for fear of hurting my pelvis and doing more damage.

I find it ironic how before I got married and had kids I hated my body. I could always find something about it I didn’t like and now I would be very happy to have that body back.

I’m sure there are a lot more thing that would come up in conversation.
Like how blessed we have been with Dowe’s job and the amazing ways in which
God worked that all out. How my cousin is going to Africa this summer with the same organization I went with 7 years ago.
How I love listening to my husband sing to our boys and talk to them
when he gets home at night.
I would tell you how I am so thankful for the authentic friendships
I have been blessed with over the last few years with other women.

But these are just a few of the many thing that are currently on my heart
that I would share with you if you came over for a coffee date.

Blogger Opp: Prefold Party!

Do you cloth diaper? Do you love prefolds? Are you a blogger?
Come help celebrate The Median Mommy's year of cloth diapering! 

She's looking for a total of 18 bloggers to sign up to party with her!
I'm joining in on the fun! Personally I haven't used prefolds (YET!) but I would love to.

However, this is going to be a lot of fun! 

Bloggers will be allotted 1 free link on the giveaway form for an announcement post AND promoting (via Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Ect.) a minimum of two times a week during the giveaway. One additional link may be purchased for $3.

You can email lauren AT themedianmommy DOT com
And go HERE to sign up!

And if you aren't a blogger but cloth diaper or want to be sure to check back and enter the giveaway coming up in July!

{Wordless Wednesday} A walk in the park.

Not my finest parenting moment.

Have you ever have a moment you're not so proud of?.....

Come on, admit it: we all have moments we are not particularly proud of and would rather not remember.

I just had one of mine.

We were at my husband's family’s Easter get-together this past Saturday.

The day had been going fairly smoothly other than a few minor things but that's bound to happen when there are 22 people in one house.

Dowe (Husband) is 1 of 8, there are 7 grandkids (5 and under), and Dowe’s Grandpa and Grandpa’s wife (R) were there as well.

We were the third car-full to arrive at my in-law’s house.
I went to work putting together the food I was asked to bring and chatted with Grandpa and R about my babysitting job.
The four of us women (MIL, oldest SILs, and myself) were all working preparing dinner while the husbands chatted and kept an eye on the kids: this was all very routine for us.

Growing up, I was one of two children.
I have a younger sister whom I like to call BuckBuck (it’s a long story…)
and we rarely had large family gatherings, except for when my dad’s whole family got together.
Sometimes I get overwhelmed being around my husband’s family: actually more frequently than I like to admit, and even after being married for almost 4 years.

As the night at the in-laws progressed, I could feel myself getting overwhelmed and my mood was changing even though I was trying not to let it happen.
It always gets crazy after dinner.
The same four of us women clean up from the meal, then there is the Easter egg hunt for the younger kids, and before you know it it’s time to leave.

When it came time that families started to leave, parents started to get impatient and short with spouses and with the kids…. All of us.

Monkey had taken off his socks at some point in time during the night.
Not a big deal, right?! Well, instead of giving them to someone or tucking them in his shoes, he just left them somewhere. When it came time to get ready to leave, he could only find one sock. I told him he needed to go look for the other one and he told me he couldn’t.
He would walk into the other room and come right back out without looking.

I lost it: I completely flipped out right in front of everyone.

I took hold of my son and scolded him for not listening to me and not looking for his sock.
I yelled at him VERY harshly for being, well, a two-year-old boy.
Only I didn't know or realize that before my husband went to play Foosball with two of his brothers and dad, that he had helped Monkey try to find the sock.

Then the guilt set in. 

Ugh.
I knew what I had to do: I had to go apologize to my son.

Not only was I beyond embarrassed that 70% of my husband’s family saw me in one of my most unflattering moments as a parent, but I saw my son sitting, crying, and unable to look up from his foot with the missing sock.

It’s one of the most humbling things as a parent to have to go back to your child and tell them you’re sorry. But that is exactly what I had to do.
My husband was going to take our son out to the car for us to leave and I told him I need to talk to him first.
I scooped up my little boy, looked him in the eyes, and told him I was sorry.
“Mommy had a stinky attitude and talked to you in a not nice way.”

I was overwhelmed, tired, and frustrated and I took it out on him.
It happens that way a lot doesn’t it?
If we’re not careful, our kids get the brunt of it.

I would love to tell you that I keep my cool all the time and that I never discipline when I’m upset or angry.
I wish I could say I’m EXACTLY the mom I always dreamed I would be.
But let’s face it, we all have our days and our moments.
We all have our breaking points.
And I would be lying to you if I tried to convince you of anything less.

I’m not a perfect mom (by far!),
I don’t always handle things in the best way possible, but at least when I mess up I know I can go back to both God and my son and ask for forgiveness.
I think in the end, that is what matters most.