My little copy cat

I think my son is trying to sign to me. bThe sign I have been most consistent with is "all done" (where you flip your hands over a few times). He has been practicing this movement - but it isn't at the "right" time. For example, this morning at 5:30 am when he wanted out of bed he started trying very hard to flip his hands and communicate with me. Last night at 11ish when I changed his diaper for the night he looked like he was trying to do the sign for light. I was VERY tempted to turn on the light for him - but that would not help him sleep. It's pretty exciting to see him start figuring things out.

On another note, I am reading the Baby Read Aloud book. It covers a lot of things I already know (because I read about this stuff incessantly). I am still struck by the difference in the number of words kids from different backgrounds are exposed to. It really is a great advantage to have a mom who is a blabbermouth and has a somewhat sophisticated vocabulary. I like the Jim Trelease quote in the book

"If the child has never heard the word, the child will never say the word; and if you have not heard it nor said it, it's pretty tough to read it and to write it."

Another little ditty from the read aloud guru (my parents had his books when we were little):

If your child is old enough to talk to, she is old enough to be read to. It's the same langauge.

I am preaching to the choir here. It really makes we want to support organizations like First Book. This organization helps put books in the hands of children who normally wouldn't have any books. You can easily support them by making and sending a card for Dr. Seuss's birthday so that Random House will donate books to children. You have to do this BEFORE MAY 1st though!

Today's Firsts

Drinking from a cup - Today we tried our sippy (again) and a regular cup that's sized for my little one. He did much better with the cup his size. I even gave him a little apple juice for the first time. I think he liked the taste of it - but he's not really swallowing very much - mostly he spit it out. He did manage to blow a few bubbles in his glass.

To the Alamo - We also went with a few of our friends to the Alamo today. Actually, to the grounds of the Alamo - we didn't go inside. It was a gorgeous day (83 degrees) after a really horrible rain storm last night (possibly 10 - 12 inches in some areas!). This week we are in the midst of Fiesta - the week when San Antonio throws itself a party. Today there was an art show of sorts down at the Alamo. It was a great day to be outside and enjoy the weather.

Laid down in the tub - Today he did this on his own. He normally is supported by my arm - but he sort of got himself down there before I could get to him and he seemed fine. In fact, when I tried to sit him upright to play - he protested. My only concern is water in his ears - any thoughts? Obviously we don't put very much water in tub since he's so young.

So these are the little firsts (or at least next steps) for the little guy. I do think he is coming close to crawling soon. Then everything changes!

Parenting Pages

Today I have spent an inordinant amount of time surfing the web. At about 11:45 I found something that is worth sharing. The first is a website about parenting written by a DAD! I have just started looking at what is on the site - but it seems really interesting with product reviews, book reviews, etc. (I found it because he was reviewing hairbows - it's a long story). So, you might want to check it out.

The other page is a link from Thingamababy. It is a book about reading aloud to your young child. I have recently been researching all types of information about reading - but I haven't come across this website yet. They have lots of good tips and I imagine the book is even better. It is hard to know what to do with books and your very young child sometimes. It seems that this book helps fill that gap.

So these are just a few little interesting tidbits I found. Enjoy!

The super whizzer

This week I have twice found my little one covered in pee pellets in the morning. I am not sure what else to call them - basically his disposable diaper has exploded and let out little styrofoam like peanuts that have similar properties to cornstarch and water. They are at once liquid and solid. VERY ODD!

I am not sure what causes these explosions. It could be that he simply is a super whizzer and his diaper can't contain it all. This diaper is supposed to be appropriate for someone much heavier than he is though. The other culprit could be a common male tendency, crotch scratching. At his young age he has instinctivly started doing this. So it's possible that he is putting pressure on his diaper that is helping it to explode. I'm not really sure how that would work - but I will put it forward as a theory.

He sleeps well through the night and I would prefer not to wake him up to change his diaper. Any thoughts?

Another symptom of the curse . . .

Although this symptom isn't mentioned in the Heaths' book, I think it crops up in my life. Those who have "the curse" in a particular area can't imagine why someone wouldn't be eager to read and learn more about their particular passion. However, it was recently brought to my attention (again) that most of the world does not have an insatiable need (or time) to learn and read. Therefore, as I write, I must remind myself that writing should be easily accessible to those who *gasp* don't enjoy reading. Most readers are not interested in the liberal arts, general enrichment approach to reading; they are interested in "What's in it for them". A good writer keeps the audience in mind; however, I am a selfish writer and write in a style that suits me - the minority. So to temper "the curse" I need to look beyond my abnormal obsession with knowledge and try to act like a normal person. This may be harder than it sounds.

In other news . . .

I guess I don't take "the curse" that seriously because I have applied to graduate school - AGAIN. I intend to complete my coursework this time. In the past pesky things like marriage, new jobs and pregnancy have gotten in the way of my studies. Actually, the biggest issue is that I did not take a stats course as an undergrad which makes it hard to puruse graduate studies. Lesson learned the hard way. This program is on-line and it is a series of four courses about working with gifted children. After reading Genius Denied and realizing that I use or lose my Americorps*VISTA money this summer I decided it was worth learning a little something. So my first two courses are essentially free - my VISTA grant covers them. It should be interesting and I imagine some of what I learn will be showing up here. So I will be a student - once again!

The Curse of Knowledge

As promised I am continuing to share a few highlights from Made to Stick by the Heath brothers. The Curse of Knowledge is something that I suffer from desperately. It truly does make it difficult for me to communicate with others (you might also call it pride, but anyway). Basically this curse works against you in a few ways when you are trying to communicate with other people. First, having too much knowledge about a subject can make it difficult to get to the core issue. You see all the nuances and it ALL seems important. Knowing too much about a subject can make it difficult to boil it all down - so you overwhlem people. Again you tell them three things instead of one and they actually remember NONE of it. Another issue is that you have trouble communicating the basics because you assume more knowledge than other people have. So you think you are sharing the basics - but even these "basics" are over your listeners head. You assume to much about what other people know. Good communication requires you to go back to square one to be effective.

In fact, sometimes people (no one I know of course) prefer to stay in thier brainy world instead of interacting with the real world. The example in the book talks about engineers and frontline workers. The frontline workers would identify a problem and ask the engineers to come down to floor, look at it, and fix it. However, the engineers preferred to consult their drawings and correct the paper version - not the real version of the problem. This sort of smacked me in the face - because I do this all the time - try to correct the theory instead of dealing with the problem in the real world. It's the curse, I tell ya.

They recommend using the question "why" to break through the curse of knowledge. This might be why we find toddlers so exasperating. They are constantly breaking down the things we thought we knew with their questioning. They are beating away at our comfortable knowledge in their effort to learn more about the practical, visible world around them. Some of their questions seem downright silly - but mostly because they aren't practical in the way we think of practical knowledge.

So, to be good communicator you have to overcome this curse and get back to basics.

A strange dream

Last night I dreamed that I was giving writing advice, based on the book Made to Stick, to a friend of mine that I haven't seen in about 2 years and who had a baby about 4 weeks ago! Strange.

So, I figured I should share a few more comments about the book. The basic premise is SUCCESs in sending your message:
S - Simple (Core)
U - Unexpected
C - Concrete
C - Credible
E - Emotional
S - Story

My dream was actually about point 1 - talking about the core issue. I often have so many thoughts that it is hard to choose just one. They all seem important to me. We have also seen this difficulty with our intern pastors at church. In the ELCA during seminary a year of your studies are as an "intern" pastor in a local congregation. This is a great concept. Our pastors learn so much and enjoy their time amongst us. However, they only give sermons about once a month. So often they try to cram all that they have learned in that one sermon. It often leads to too many points to remember and feels very overwhelming (and long). My husband has been on the intern committee that oversees these young pastors and they always have to talk about focusing the sermon. It's just hard when there are so many ideas floating around.

This is also made more difficult because the more "expert" you are on a subject the more details seem relevant. This is what they call the "Curse of Knowledge" but we'll talk more about that next time. For your idea to stick -you need to pick just one - not many. As my mom always reminded me as I'd leave for essay tests - "KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid!" I'm still working on it mom.

Softy Love

I will get back to blogging about Made to Stick but I have been ignoring the 15 library books I have checked out and trying something different this week. I have been online looking for patterns for various things and have found a few that I thought were worth trying out. So here are some of my creations from this week.

This is my rendition of the Chibi Bunny since it is Easter.

The big bunny is Buster for the boy and the little one is Mimi (she was my second trial run - the first one didn't even get stuffed). It is kind of hard to tell in this picture (the lighting isn't that great) but his left ear has already been mauled (I mean loved on). I also tried to make a cloth doll - but I am not sure how to make its head look human.

Yesterday I spent most of the day trying to get library books out of the little ones mouth so I decided he needed some cloth books. I found some great instructions that I played around with a little bit (but I can't find them now of course). Anyway, I decided to pull out my stamping stuff and make an object per "page". Overall they turned out well and he has really liked them so far. I am using non-toxic substances and I will need to heat set them soon. So now he has his On the Go book (cars, planes, etc.) and his Nature Book (bugs, leaves, flowers). He can chew on these all he wants.

I still am interested in making the baby booties - I have tried but I haven't found a pattern that works for me. Tonight I might have come across one (my problem is the heel). I am also eyeing the "sock puppy" much like the "sock monkey" (I made one of these in December and he turned out pretty good). Actually you can make "sock dolls" too and that might be what we end up doing for baby dolls around here. Seeing as my attempt at a doll so far looks like an alien.

There is a whole universe of softy animals out there. As my husband says, we don't really need any more stuffed animals - but it's fun. I am also thinking about going back to plastic canvas (a blast from the past). We'll see!

Creativity can be taught!

Commercial creativity can be boiled down to 6 templates that can be applied to sell any message. Actually there are two models that are used most frequently with success. I know this rubs against our normal understanding of creativity - inspiration. "Patterned creativity" sounds like an oxymoron - but it seems to be true. Apparently, using these models helps you to think more productively and they have proven effectiveness in helping your message "stick" with other people.

I won't get into the nitty gritty details of how they discovered this information or what the templates are (you can read the article above). The general idea is that they viewed successful commercials and discovered underlying patterns in the "best" commercials. Commercials that did not use these patterns tended to be less creative (and less memorable) even though they were tyring to "think outside the box" and be creative. To "test" this theory they taught these templates and people using them were able to develop more "creative" commercials. Obviously this does not encompass all of creativity - they aren't trying to do that. It does show that there might be patterns in places that we don't expect though.

This is just one little gem of an idea in the book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. I think this might be my new favorite book. Basically, it has systematically explained to me why I am not a good communicator and helpfully showed me how I can improve. I intend to share more nuggets from this book -but as it says - if you have three ideas no one remembers any of them.

New Skills

Citizen Schools peeked my interest in the book their work is based on, Teaching the New Basic Skills by Richard J. Muranane and Frank Levy. Although written ten years ago, I think their insights are even more relevant today. They argue that a high school diploma should be enough to prepare you for the average middle class job in America. However, they have found that the skills that schools teach and the needs of corporate America are not aligning to help our graduating seniors find decent jobs.

They have identified three major types of skills that, if well done in the classroom, should prepare the average student to find employment. They are:

• basic hihg school level reading and mathematics
• soft skills like team work, problem solving and presentation
• and finally basic computer skills.

These seem like things that would be learned in high school, but unfortunately that's not always the case. As my husband, who works at the library laments, many recently graduated students lack basic typing and wordprocessing skills.

In addition to considering what our students need to learn, they share a five points of effective management in corporate America.

1. Ensure that everyone understands the problem. Sometimes you truly are working on two different issues but think they are the same.
2. Design jobs so that there are incentives and opportunities for people to contribute. I think we've all be in a situation where they have asked for our input but not really wanted it - this needs to be avoided.
3. Provide people with the training needed to pursue solutions. This might be learning specific skills, patterns of thinking, etc. The other point they make here is to FOLLOW UP on training - we've all been trainings where there is no follow through. It's a waste of everyone's time.
4. Measure progress on a regular basis. How are we doing, how do we know that we are reaching our goals, etc.
5. Perservere and learn from mistakes. I like this point because it emphasizes that if you are trying something new there will be problems, issues and kinks. This attitude allows you to see them as chances to learn not failures.

This book does not discuss "knowledge management" as a term - but that is basically what they are getting at. But that's another tangent. So this is a quick thumbnail of the book and it is a good read because they use great examples of these principles in action. They have done their research and boiled it down to a few critical elements that business and education should heed. I can see what Citizen Schools has adopted their format to build their programs.