Happy 1st birthday to Colin!  We bought you a really awesome present to celebrate– a house! Hope you like it.

This is our new house! We love this little place and all the neighbors we have meet so far. We are waist deep in projects to get this house the way we want it, but it seems like a perfect fit for us. I’ll be posting before and after pictures of all the work we do on it so stay tuned.

As most of you know (and for those who don’t), I am an American Sign Language interpreter. I graduated from UVU in Deaf Studies and have studied American Sign Language and Deaf culture for 11 years now. I absolutely love what I do, and have put countless hours into trying to improve my skills and understanding of the language. Ever since I started down this career path I have noticed that I elicit one of five reactions from people when I tell them what I do. Here’s a little breakdown of comments I get (rough estimate):

20% of people reply with polite comments like “that’s cool” or “interesting” and conversation questions like “what got you into that?” That’s appropriate.

10% of people will tell me that they know an interpreter or a deaf person and ask if I know them. I always love to see if there are any random connections out there so that’s cool.

5% of people assume that I know how to read Braille. SERIOUSLY?!

5% of people flail their hands and arms around wildly and then ask me what they just said. Completely offensive and annoying.

60% of people tell me they know sign language too, then they excitedly to show me the 5 signs they know. Single college guys tend to know something along the lines of “Will you make out with me.” If I’m talking to a mother with young children they show me the signs for MORE, MILK, ALL DONE, and other “baby signs” they know from watching  Signing Time.

I am terribly sorry, but knowing a handful of signs does not equate to knowing American Sign Language. This is equivalent to telling people that you know Spanish because you watch “Go, Diego, Go!”

I think the reason that people claim to know ASL, when they only know a handful of short phrases, is there are a lot of misunderstandings and myths in regards to American Sign Language (and other signed languages throughout the world).  I could write a long detailed post to explain away these misunderstandings but, to be brief I will just clarify just two of the biggest.

1. American Sign Language is language equally complex as any spoken language. It is linguistically complete with grammatical rules, morphemes, syntax, phonemes,  and can express complex and abstract ideas. It has everything that makes a language a language. It is not a simplified version of English on your hands.

2. Just as there is no universal spoken language, there is no universal sign language. American Sign Language developed naturally as did any spoken language. It wasn’t just invented by someone and then taught to the deaf.

Sorry for the rant and if any of you have given me the responses that I just criticized, it’s OK. I still love you. You probably have had little or, more likely, no contact with deaf people. (And if you have, shame on you.)

Here are two little tips that I have discovered over the past few weeks. I’m sure I’m not the first to do these, but I’ll pass along the tips in case any of you haven’t thought about this yet.

Parenting Hack #1:

When you have a little boy with beautiful thick hair like Colin, putting on sunscreen can cause newly washed hair to become greasy. So, every morning when I’m getting him dressed, I pull his onesie up just to his hairline and uncover his ears. Once his hair is out of the way, I sunblock his face, then the rest of him and change his diaper. By this time (he’s a mover so this whole process is a wrestling match), the lotion has absorbed and I can take his onesie all the way off and get him dressed.

(Proof of wonderful hair)

(Morning routine)

Parenting Hack #2:

I was out  to dinner with some friends and I realized that I had forgotten a spoon for Colin’s baby food. My solution? I asked for an extra straw and slurped up baby food into the straw and let Colin suck it out. He loved it and it was much cleaner then spoon feeding him (see previous post to see how spoon feeding goes). I have now used this trick a few other times and I actually prefer it to spoon feeding. A straw works great in a pinch so I keep some in my diaper bag and in the car. Another benefit is there is nothing to clean up, just toss it in the garbage when you’re done!

So, spoons and straws are both great ways to feed a baby, but my real recommendation to anyone with a baby in this stage are these Infafeeder Baby Food bottles by Sassy:

My lovely sister-in-law introduced me to these.  I can get a lot more food into my growing little guy when I use these because normally he gets sick of waiting for me to give him the next bite with a spoon (or straw) that he gives up on the whole eating thing. The bottom of the bottle moves up with the food and the opening is big enough to suck baby food through. They are easy to clean since all the food gets scraped off the sides as the bottom come up.

See! He loves it. He can gulp down a whole jar of baby food in no time!

Have you ever heard of dying Easter Eggs using silk ties (or any printed silk for that matter)? I hadn’t until I read about it on one of my favorite websites Our Best Bites.  Here’s what you do:

1. Take raw eggs and wrap them in 100% silk. We used some of my Grandpa’s old ties. The more wild and flowery the print the better and lucky for us my Grandpa had plenty that fit that category. My Grandpa died on Easter four years ago so this was also a neat way to remember him during this time of year.

My lovely sister demonstrating how it’s done!

2. Using an old pillow case or sheet wrap the eggs one more time.

We used twist ties but elastics or string would work too.

3. Boil eggs in any type of no-alluminum pot along with 1/4 cup vinegar. Once the water comes to a boil, reduce heat and let them do there thing for 20-25 minutes.

* We hollowed out some eggs by poking a small hole in each end and blowing out the insides before we dyed them and it worked well. The only problem is that the hollow eggs don’t sink in the water so we had to put a heavy lid to hold them under.

4. Unwrap! This is the best part. I was so thrilled at how they turned out.

Just a random observation:

I LOVE holidays that revolve around candy– I may have an addiction. I get really excited for candy that is  holiday specific. The fact that you can only buy it during a certain times of the year is what does me in. Take for example Valentine’s JuJu hearts– I am obsessed with these during the weeks before Valentine’s day because they are only around for such a short time. Now, don’t get me wrong, these little gems are good, but if they were always available I think I would pass them by for other candy to satisfy my sweet tooth.

Conversation hearts are another example of a candy that I would never buy if they were around all year. I know this for a fact because I used to LOVE Peeps (don’t judge me!) but have you noticed that the folks at the peep factory now come out with a different shaped Peep for almost every major holiday? I haven’t bought Peeps in years because they aren’t as exciting anymore.

There is one treat that I could stand to have around all year and would consume in mass quantities and that is Samoa Girl Scout Cookies.  Coincidentally it’s almost cookie season and you can find where to buy these little pieces of heaven on earth here.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

P.S. In case you were wondering, Colin is still sooo cute!

Ok, so I didn’t make a citizens arrest, but I did call the cops on some people the other day. I was on the freeway heading north when I noticed something strange in the car in front of me. I was horrified to see a woman in the backseat holding a baby and holding the baby above her head. The baby had to be between 2 and 3 months old.

I called the police and followed them until they pulled into a parking lot. When they got out I looked into their car and they had a car seat in there but it was not strapped down and was facing the wrong way for a baby that little. The cops got there just after they got out of their car and since they didn’t see them in the act of having the child unrestrained they couldn’t do anything about it and the women were lying about having the baby strapped into the car seat. Grrrrrr. The cop said that they could issue the driver a citation but most likely they would contest it in court and  I would have to go testify against them. In the end it would be their word against mine and would not go anywhere. I didn’t want to have to hassle with that so the cop promised me that he would make sure to lecture the mom about what she did.

We survived Swine Flu ‘09. There has been a lot of hype surrounding the H1N1 flu and from personal experience I can tell you that this flu is a beast. Colin, Stephe, and I all had the flu 2 weeks ago. We finally took the baby to the Doctor after 5 days of a fever and he tested positive for H1N1. To be honest the worst part was the constant fear that Colin would develop pneumonia from the flu (the common complication that is causing people to die from this). I sat up 3 nights just holding him because I was so paranoid about his breathing– he sounded like Darth Vadoe for over a week. It took a long time to get out of our systems and Stephe and Colin still have lingering coughs.

Since we were still recovering from being sick on Halloween we decided to lay low at home and hope for some trick-or-treators but no one came . We did go visit Stephe’s family to see the little kids in their costumes.

Colin and his cousins on Halloween

I love the one eyebrow raise in this picture.

I have so many pictures of Colin in his car seat, and that is because I tend to sit back there with him while Stephe drives– my sister calls this “a rookie move.” It is, but that is exactly what I am!

Last week we took a little trip to Portland. Colin was a good traveler, but it is a lot harder than I thought it would be to travel with a baby. There is just so much extra gear to tote around and I really missed my rocking chair when I was feeding Colin in the middle of the night. Our trip was still a lot of fun, Portland is a fun city to visit and just being in a new place was refreshing.

We went to an amazing farmers market on the campus of PSU.

We had one day of really rainy weather but the rest of the trip was perfect weather.

Oregon Museum of Science and Industry

My favorite season has just begun! Just look at this forecast, there are few perfect weeks of weather every year and I think this is one of  them.

Not too hot, not too cold. Sweaters in the evenings, t-shirts during the day. I LOVE it!

I started a new fall tradition this year– canning peaches. Stephe’s sisters showed me the ropes, and did almost all the work, while I tried to keep Colin happy. Next year will go much smoother… I hope.

Also, this week we did my “all time” favorite fall activity — dipping carmeled apples. I plan on doing this at least 4 more times before fall is over.

Thanks Dan and Robynn for hosting us.

I loved dipping individual slices in different toppings so that we could taste different combinations. Here is a list of toppings that go amazing with carmeled apples: coconut, nuts, crushed Oreos, cinnamon and sugar, Heath bar pieces, Reeses Pieces, M&Ms, mini chocolate chips, and any combination mixing these together.

And no blog post is complete theses days without a picture of Colin!

Colin had his 2 month Doctor appointment and weighs 12.5 pounds and is almost 24 inches.

Colin’s favorite fall activity so far is not sleeping… fun!  :(