We have eye contact, one on one, just the two of us.   It’s a small window of opportunity and I do my best to take advantage of it, to cram as much as possible through that little gaping hole in the window.   Some days, I feel complete, I feel like I’ve been productive.   Well, those “some days” are few and far between and on those days I’m not even sure if I’m connecting.   Other days, my efforts are futile.   There’s absolutely no chance that I’m going to have even one nanosecond of undivided attention. 

How do you know when you’re being more than just a parent to your child?   How do you know that what you’re trying to teach him or her is actually making it through the firewall?   Our babies are inundated with so much information daily.    Their little brains (actually not so little) are on constant overload.  

There’s learning to crawl, walk, picking up toys, pulling themselves up, trying to talk, feeding themselves, an endless world of possibilities and yet I’m trying to push more and more into his brain, but at what cost and is he actually understanding what I’m doing?   Am I connecting with him?

My goal these days is to teach Davey sign language.   I want him to know a second language and I’m hoping this will be a way for us to communicate with each other before he’s even speaking.  It’s awesome for me to learn a second language as well.  I’m finding that in the past couple of weeks, I’ve learned to communicate better with sign language than I did in 6 years of French classes (which I’m thinking of picking back up again so I can teach Davey that as well when he starts speaking.)  Here’s my problem…I don’t know if Davey is comprehending anything I’m teaching him.  

Every morning after breakfast, we have our lessons.   He starts out pretty attentive, but quickly he’s all over the place and I just don’t know if he’s learning anything.   He’s not signing back to me, but he’s not even 8 months old yet so it could be a bit too early for that.   When will I know if all of my efforts are paying off?   He seems to be happy, he interacts with the teaching materials I have which consist of blocks with letters, magnetic letters, paper and crayons (to draw letters and pictures) and books with the alphabet and pictures of words with each letter.  He loves to reach out and touch everything as we’re signing each morning.  I just wish he could reciprocate to at least say “hey, mom, I’m getting it.”  

Are any of you out there trying to teach things like this to your kids?   What are your stories and results?