There is a delicate balance in life when watching TV and balancing on a bobby car at the same time:

Vinc and I went to the eye doctor yesterday for his eye check up. We had to wait for over an hour - he was the only kid - and he was behaving marvellously. He charmed all the pensionsistas and just behaved SO well. Very comforting, especially since I did start reading the Memorykeeper’s Daughter, and now I am paranoid enough to think that the whole older population of the world would think similarly to the school board where they argued for full inclusion. But Vince charmed them all did not throw any fits. As opposed to when we were waiting for speech last week and he was a horror,  a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e HORROR.

When it finally was his turn, the Dr looked at his eyes and declared come back in 6 months. The nurses at the place are all very nice, but the Dr himself is just plain rude. Sure he does a good job, but it is not that easy to get a 2 year old to sit still and look into the little light he was shining in his eye. The Dr just got very impatient and told me to hold him harder… So, it made me a bit mad. I mean, come on, after waiting for that long, give the kid a 30s break to calm down when he is being forced in a weird position. So now I am thinking about calling an other place and put us on a waiting list. We have 6 months time anyways. We have been at this Dr since Vince was 6 weeks old, but it should be easy enough to transfer his journal. I think that is what I will do…

Guess who went #2 on the potty yesterday?

Hint: Neither Bookie nor I.

I picked up Vince fr day care the other day, I had called ahead and said I was running late due to severe storms. No worries, got there on time and the teacher that was still there went on a big gossip deal about some of the other parents. So to the point that I was thinking, Holy Macaroni, what does she say about us? I just kind of said yes, yes and tried to get Vince ready to head out the door.
Then she tells me:
But you guys have to do something about Vincent’s hair.
About his hair, I said? What is wrong with his hair?
Well that hair cut does not fit him at all! It doesn’t fit his face.

I was a bit flabbergasted, so I did not say much. But HELLO it is MY kid! Can’t believe she said it! She was not my favorite before, and that did not make her climb the popularity ladder either…

This is the slideshow that was shown at the presentation of Conny Wenk’s latest book release party, Aussergewöhnlich: Väterglück.
I watch the DVD for the first time this morning (just got it in the mail) and immediately I was filled with an undescribably mighty feeling of happiness and pride. Thank You for everything you do for our kids!

Edited note: sorry, had to remove it.

Pst. you do know that you can buy this book on Amazon or from me, right?

Ditto Cate. Totally addictive.

www.goodreads.com

I read a lot of books. And I like to keep all of my books. Bookie also reads a lot, Vince so-so. But there are a lot of books at our place. I buy books in English or Swedish, I am not so good at reading German (I get lost real easily). So when in Swedish or on Amazon I usually buy/order a big pile to last me a few months.
I just finished The Golden Notebook and The Cleft by Doris Lessing (both were great and worth reading) she is definitely a way worthier winner of the Noble Prize in Literature than Jelinek (that Piano Teacher book is still haunting me).
Last night it was time to start a new book. There were only two left. Both I want to read, but for some reason they were left to the last two books. The one I chose to read now is The Kite Runner, after 4 chapters I am hooked. The one that has to wait, which I am not ready for yet is The Memory Keeprs Daughter. I know, I know, most of you will bang your heads in the wall, but I am not sure I can handle that one yet… Books are runnig short over here in Austria though, so soon I will have no excuse but to read it…

Take a look for yourself, the kid obviously wants to do the talking around here. He will pick up a cell phone (he now has his own Sony Ericsson - a former of mine) and he walks around talking into it. It is a life saver. For example this morning as I was trying to take a really quick shower, I heard him playing with the sink. He loves water and especially the sink. He climbs up on the toilet and from there he reaches to the water faucet. So I hear him turning the water on and off (which somehow short cuts the water in the shower and makes it freezing cold/scolding hot), I look out of the shower to see him sitting in the sink. Diaper still on… So, half showered I put him on the floor, found the cell phone and let him play with that. That allowed for a 5 min shower.
He is really good at picking up signs and I am amazed that I have stuck with it. Signing seemed very complex and overwhelming when we first were informed about it. I thought we would try it out, but I did not think we would stick to it! But we did, and he picks up new signs every day. It really is great to see what he wants and to realize he understands it.
Later on in the morning we were doing our regular morning session of signing. I will say a word and aks if he can say it. He then signs it. I asked can you say FISH and he signed FISH. Can you say BOAT and he signed BOAT AND SAID boat (in Swedish). I asked again if he could say BOAT and he signed it and SAID it again!!!! Of course I ran for the camera and tried to get him to say it again but then he was off fighting with a dinosaur thingie. So instead enjoy this clip of Vince talking on the phone - and yes he is ON the table…

We do wash him every night… this was after dinner and before bath time…

This little kid had his 2-year check up yesterday and it went well. Vince even showed off some advanced signing and the dr was mighty impressed. He is also back on his curve for weight, but he is still a little short (we use the regular curve, not the DS curve). We also agreed on skipping ergo therapy for now (can’t say i love that therapist) and decided to move along with 1 hr speech therapy every 2 weeks and 90 min EI every week. Other skills we are working on are:

House cleaning, here doing some vacuming

Fine motor skills, dipping chicken in very beloved mustard. We go through a bunch of mustard between this kid and his father

Multi-tasking here; working on fine motor skills - dialing and speech - talking.

Working on sleeping longer in the morning … pleeeeease Vince… really 5 am is early…

Vince is starting to really want to communicate more. As I am the one getting him ready in the morning, and the child does get up at the crack of dawn (or before zzzz), we do have about 3hrs before day care. It is a bit hard getting him to concentrate and not run of to some of his other toys when you try to talk/sign to him. Thankfully, he loves his bed and the last few days we have been crawled up there together reading books. This morning he surprised me by signing AIRPLANE when he saw the pic of an airplane - before I signed it. He is getting really good at signing after you and he picks up the signs really fast now. Other new signs includes socks, please (sometimes) thank you (sometimes), sleep, bath, brush teeth, sun, hot, cold, water, bike, food, cheese, apple - plus all the animal signs he know.

His spoken words are:
MAMMA
PAPPA
DOG vov vov
KATT (Cat in Swedish)
HORT (Horse)

He seems to understand all three languages spoken at home (Swedish, English and German). At least he acts on cues in all three languages. He still does not know abstract things very well and we are working on the hot/cold and such things. We have speech therapy starting again next week and we will do it 1 hr every 2 weeks, every week if I can beg my way into it with the therapist who is rather fully booked.

Now, this is what I need help with. I feel really bad for not having put together Vincent’s Signing Book for day care. They want to sign with him, but we have yet to put together some info for them. So what I am planning to do is take a picture of things he knows/likes, put it in a little photo album and also put the printed ASL sign for the picture next to it. But where can I find a print out of the ASL signs? I have been googling ASL but the links I find are so often with a little movie clip. We do have the flash cards from Signing Times, so I guess copying them would be an option, but I would prefer just two hands showing the sign. Any one have any ideas?

And anyone know which Signing Time volume is the one with brushing teeth, combing hair (The …every morning, every morning…song???