My Baby Can Read, Can Yours?

Previously on The Cheese Says....Mmmmm, we reviewed the Starter DVD and the Volume 1 DVD in the Your Baby Can Read program. If you read (or re-read) my original review, you might recall my initial skepticism. And then how that skepticism was shattered in the face of a baby that would clap when shown the word 'clap' on TV.

Well, We're still going strong! Recently the people at Your Baby Can Read and the Parent Bloggers Network provided us with the Volume 2 DVD and yet more word cards, both of the regular and sliding variety. And the verdict? Sam still loves them! The songs, the kids, the cards. He loves it all. We're still operating on the same routine of watching the disc during breakfast. On weekends, we try and review the Starter DVD and Volume 1. With the help of these videos, Sam can easily identify over a dozen body parts, make multiple animal sounds and sing along to several different songs. He loves to play with the cards, and flip them around to see the words on front and back. The only trouble we've had is with the 82 double sided word cards. These aren't quite as durable as Sam's age (17 months) requires. This mistake was learned at the expense of the word 'Happy.'

While I don't think Sam is truly reading yet, I have noticed some changes since the last review. Now when we read books to him, he seems to be following along with his eyes. In some books that only have a line or two on each page, he will actually point to the words with his finger, kind of like how they do on the videos. I've tested him a few times by reciting the text from future pages before I actually turn to that page, and he will find the appropriate page for me. Also, he will often point insistently to a word he recognizes until I say it. Honestly, I find this nothing short of amazing.

Also, as much as I hate to admit this, my kid loves the TV. Dear old dad gives into his adorable requests for Sesame Street all too often, me thinks. But the Your Baby Can Read program has helped keep the peace around here on more than one occasion. As long as these DVDs are playing, I don't get nearly as pissy when I come home to find that daddy has had the TV on for hours.

As a final testimonial as to how much we enjoy and utilize these DVDs, let me tell you that before PBN contacted me about reviewing the Volume 2 DVD, I had already ordered a copy at my own expense. That's right folks, I was more than willing to part with my own dough in order to continue Sam on this program. Luckily, I have a friend who I turned on to the Your Baby Can Read program, and she was more than happy to take the extras off my hands! I also intend to show these programs to Numero Dos once she makes her presence known. Which she better do soon if she knows what's good for her.

Truthfully, I couldn't be happier with this program, and I would have never heard about it if it weren't for the PBN peeps. I'll make sure he thanks you, along with Dr. Robert C. Titzer, Ph.D. when he's receiving his (first) Nobel Prize.

You Know Your Kid Is Narcissistic When...

Sam's favorite 'story' to 'read' at bedtime is the photo album I made of the first year of his life. Guess who is prominently featured in every single photograph? This little ham!

The kid, he loves himself. Most kids his age do. So the idea of putting his face in an actual story book that we could read was almost too good to be true. But ImagiTales and the lovely folks over at the Parent Bloggers Network made my dreams a reality when they offered me three personalized children's books.

I got to work building my ImagiTales on a lonely Saturday night. The first step, and by far the most involved, is finding a digital picture of the little one (and yourself or spouse in some cases) that works well with the process. This means that the subject is looking squarely into the camera. The ImagiTales web page offers the advice that both ears should be showing. A toddler who rarely sits still for the camera is rarely photographed head-on. Actually, most of my pictures are of the back of his head. Still, I managed to find two that would work.

Once you upload the photo to the site, just follow the easy instructions on how to outline the head. Word of warning: the instructions are easy. The task, not so much. This was, for me, the most difficult portion of the program. It involves making an outline of dots around your kid's head and hair. The more close together your dots are, the finer the cutout will be. If you have even a hint of perfectionism in you, this step could take you hours. The site advises you to 'just take your time and enjoy the process,' which I may have been able to do if I had the liberty to enjoy the process with a glass of wine. But once I got the hang of it, I was able to add several heads to my 'faces library' in a reasonable amount of time.

Once I had all my faces in order, I set about making some books. There are several titles to choose from, and each comes in a Beginner version and a Standard version. Even though Sam's been religiously watching his Your Baby Can Read dvds, we went with the Beginner version. I selected I'm A Big Brother, Nature Things and My Body. After a few minutes inputing names and pronouns, the books were ready for proofing! This part was really quick and easy, so once you have your 'faces library' in order the process is pretty effortless.

As soon as you're finished, you get to see a proof copy of your book. Read it very carefully. I did not. Somehow I accidentally replaced the word 'sister' with the word 'sleeping.' One page reads, 'Daddy and Mommy hold the baby because my little baby sleeping is so little.' Another says, 'I read my favorite book to my baby sleeping.' What can I say? Pregnancy has ruined my brain.

After you verify that all of the words you entered were correct and the genders you assigned are right and proper (I also accidentally made Daddy a she on one page) you are finished! You can buy an E-book of your ImagiTales for $2.95 or a paperback version for $9.95. If you purchase a paperback, you get the E-book for free, by the way. The E-book is nice if you have a lot of folks you'd like to share with. Or if you've used a particularly funny picture of your spouse in one of the books, you can email it to all of his friends and family!

The books arrived in a very timely fashion. The site says to allow for one to two weeks, but I think ours came even sooner. More importantly, Sam ADORES these books. At bedtime, he wildly gestures to the shelf where we keep them, and as soon as we finish one he starts calling for the next. He loves to point to the pictures of himself, and when we read My Body, he even points out his real life parts as we read. We do have to keep them up on a higher shelf because they are a bit flimsy, and Sam is a ripper/shredder when it comes to paper pages. But if your kids are a little older (or have more respect for fine works of literature) then this shouldn't be an issue.

Overall, I think this is a great product. And since you can make your first E-book for free, you should really click over to the ImagiTales homepage and find out for yourself. I can't wait until Sam is grown up and we can pull these out to embarrass him in front of his prom date. He loves them so much now, I hope they last that long!

Steal This Post!

If you haven't heard about IBC from WhyMommy over at Toddler Planet, read on, and steal away!

We hear a lot about breast cancer these days. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes, and there are millions living with it in the U.S. today alone. But did you know that there is more than one type of breast cancer?

I didn’t. I thought that breast cancer was all the same. I figured that if I did my monthly breast self-exams, and found no lump, I’d be fine.

Oops. It turns out that you don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer. Six weeks ago, I went to my OB/GYN because my breast felt funny. It was red, hot, inflamed, and the skin looked…funny. But there was no lump, so I wasn’t worried. I should have been. After a round of antibiotics didn’t clear up the inflammation, my doctor sent me to a breast specialist and did a skin punch biopsy. That test showed that I have inflammatory breast cancer, a very aggressive cancer that can be deadly.

Inflammatory breast cancer is often misdiagnosed as mastitis because many doctors have never seen it before and consider it rare. “Rare” or not, there are over 100,000 women in the U.S. with this cancer right now; only half will survive five years. Please call your OB/GYN if you experience several of the following symptoms in your breast, or any unusual changes: redness, rapid increase in size of one breast, persistent itching of breast or nipple, thickening of breast tissue, stabbing pain, soreness, swelling under the arm, dimpling or ridging (for example, when you take your bra off, the bra marks stay – for a while), flattening or retracting of the nipple, or a texture that looks or feels like an orange (called peau d’orange). Ask if your GYN is familiar with inflammatory breast cancer, and tell her that you’re concerned and want to come in to rule it out.

There is more than one kind of breast cancer. Inflammatory breast cancer is the most aggressive form of breast cancer out there, and early detection is critical. It’s not usually detected by mammogram. It does not usually present with a lump. It may be overlooked with all of the changes that our breasts undergo during the years when we’re pregnant and/or nursing our little ones. It’s important not to miss this one.

Inflammatory breast cancer is detected by women and their doctors who notice a change in one of their breasts. If you notice a change, call your doctor today. Tell her about it. Tell her that you have a friend with this disease, and it’s trying to kill her. Now you know what I wish I had known before six weeks ago.

You don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer.

P.S. Feel free to steal this post too. I’d be happy for anyone in the blogosphere to take it and put it on their site, no questions asked. Dress it up, dress it down, let it run around the place barefoot. I don’t care. But I want the word to get out. I don’t want another young mom — or old man — or anyone in between — to have to stare at this thing on their chest and wonder, is it mastitis? Is it a rash? Am I overreacting? This cancer moves FAST, and early detection and treatment is critical for survival.

Thank you.

Check It, Yo!

Have you seen the new design over at the Parent Bloggers Network site? It's suh-weet! And if you were unconvinced about how awesome we are, just check out the testimonials!

Gaining Insight

My husband doesn't speak to his father. This has been going on for almost four years now, but the problems began more than a decade ago when his father got re-married. I have foolishly tried to help mend the gap on several occasions, only to end up being on the receiving end of a load of bullshit, for lack of a more eloquent term.

Part of my motivation to fix things is selfish. I don't want to have to explain to my children why their grandfather isn't allowed to see them. But the larger thing motivating me is anger. I can't understand how a person could so cleanly cut off his own flesh and blood at the directive of a spouse. Even more, I can't imagine choosing to stay with a spouse who would force you to pick between your children (and innocent grandchildren) and them.

I was hoping that When Parents Hurt, by Joshua Coleman, Ph. D. would give me some insight into my father-in-law's decisions so that maybe I could let go of some of my anger. Because at this point, even if things changed and he wanted to see us, I don't know if I'd be able to do so. Because this book addresses troubled relationships from the perspective of the parent, maybe reading it could help me to understand some of my father-in-law's choices. Additionally, knowing how their damaged relationship had affected my husband, I was hoping this book could help me gain a little information on what not to do with our own kids.

One of the chapters I found most helpful was Divorce Wounds. My parents are still together, so I sometimes have trouble understanding the complexities underlying the relationship between my husband and his parents. After discussing potential effects on the family dynamics, Coleman discusses several key issues that may be upsetting to parents after a divorce, and includes things to 'Strive to avoid' and to' Strive to.' I immediately zeroed in on 'I made my child a lower priority than my new partner.' Reading this section did help, but it also made me realize that, at least according to the author, most of my father-in-law's actions were not made in the interest of preserving his relationship with his children. Does this make me more or less angry? I'm not quite sure yet.

Even if you don't have any family trauma/drama, there is some very interesting information in this book. Chapter five, Brave New Parents of the Twenty-First Century, chronicles the evolution of parenting from the early 1900's to the present day. Coleman points out how the addition of electricity, appliances and vehicles to the home in the 1930's lead to a significant increase in accidental deaths of children. Although I may have been able to make this connection on my own, I may not have though to link this to a major change in parenting norms due to the increase of parental guilt.

In the end, a part of me wants to ship this book off to my father-in-law, no strings attached. I think it could help their relationship immensely if only his wife would let him use some of the strategies therein. But I've learned my lesson, so I won't interfere.

Which is good news for you, dear readers! I have a brand new, hard bound copy of When Parents Hurt, by Joshua Coleman, Ph. D. to ship off to one of you. Please leave a comment or email me if you are interested. If more than one person contacts me, I'll have to do a random drawing, but fear not because you can buy the book on Amazon. Need more info? Check out all the reviews over at the Parent Bloggers Network.

Body, Soul and Baby

When I was pregnant with Sammy, I religiously poured over the pages of the traditional 'What To Expect' pregnancy tome. It provided me with tons of information, but little insight. I didn't notice at the time, because I was so high on excitement and progesterone, but the book seemed to focus more on issues or problems that can occur during pregnancy, while only giving a brief mention to the more positive aspects of pregnancy.

Now it's the second time around, and the excitement of the unknown is missing. Add to that the fact that I'm a little older, a little heavier and I have a toddler to chase and you can imagine why this pregnancy has been a little less the thrilling experience that my first was. When I went to consult with the pregnancy book, I came away feeling even more negative then when I started. I had read some earlier reviews of Body, Soul and Baby by Tracy W. Gaudet, M.D. but I wasn't sure a new book was the answer. I trudged through my first and second trimesters like a good little soldier, but I wasn't really enjoying being pregnant.

And then there was some sort of mystical intervention. The Parent Bloggers Network was looking for bloggers to review Body, Soul and Baby. I decided to give it a try, figuring that it couldn't make things any worse, right?

Once I started reading, I knew that this was not your normal pregnancy book. Dr. Gaudet stresses focusing on the experience of being pregnant, both physical and mental, instead of just playing attention to the 'condition' of being pregnant. She recommends the use of integrative medicine (combining 'the best of conventional Western medical practices with a careful selection from a range of other, less mainstream therapies') to help enhance a woman's ability to tune in to her body during this dynamic time.

Early chapters include questions and tools that can help with this process. While some of these tools seemed a little too 'new age' for me, others, like journaling (aka blogging) seemed to make good sense and were pretty simple to execute.

Preconception and conception are covered, but since I had mastered that part back in December, I skimmed ahead to the discussion of the actual pregnancy. Each trimester is covered over four chapters: Reflection and Observation, The Inside Scoop, Medical Care and Self Care. Labor and delivery and the postpartum period are also covered in the same way. This organization is helpful because say you have a question about labor that is of the medical variety, it is easy to locate the chapter where that information can be found.

Since I started reading Body, Soul and Baby I have recommended it to several other pregnant friends. They also have had similar positive responses to the book. There are a lot of books out there aimed at expectant mothers, so it can be difficult to find one that appeals to a wide variety of personalities. However, because Dr. Gaudet combines complimentary and alternative techniques with her medical knowledge, her approach to pregnancy and birth can be appealing to many different types of women.

Usually after reading a book for a PBN review, I offer it up to one of my readers. Bad news for you though, because I think this one if going to stay on my shelf for a little longer. I'm betting it'll come in handy during the first week of September when my body is reeling from progesterone withdrawal!

August? Are You Sure? Well, Maybe You're Having Twins.

There is a line in the movie Annie where the orphans are fighting and someone yells, 'Can it, you twit!' That is my favorite line.

It's also the phrase that most readily springs to mind when friends/relatives/strangers have found occasion to comment on my current pregnancy.

Look, I know that my babies are going to be close in age. This may come as a surprise to you, but I took two semesters of calculus and physics as requirements for my biology degree. I think that I'm more than qualified to count the months between by kids' birthdays. Hell, I bet Sam can even count to 18 thanks to Sesame Street. And while I understand that this is the south, if one more random person at the Y/Little Gym/playground asks if I'm catholic after hearing that my kids will only be 18 months apart, I might invoke the name of the lord in ways that are inappropriate for children's ears.

Also, please understand that I visit the doctor regularly and I am certain that my due date is correct and that I am not having twins. I am painfully aware that I weighed the same when I got pregnant the second time as I did the day I delivered Sam. I am not happy about this, and I was planning to work on losing weight before I got pregnant again, but guess what? I got pregnant by accident! If you keep asking, I'm going to start giving a more detailed account, including dates, of the circumstances leading to my accidental pregnancy. Is that what you want? A very clear mental picture of me and SOB getting a little tipsy on our first real date in Atlanta and then going at it? Do you? 'Cause I'll go there.

So to you, Aunt Jo Ann. And you Uncle Scott. And you, Carter-from-Little-Gym's mother, and you random lady at the pool with the same maternity swim suit as me. I say, emphatically:

Can it, you twit!

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Don’t you wish you could have just handed them this?

What would you do in these situations? If you've got a witty comeback, click over to the Parent Bloggers Network and tell your story. You could win a new iPod Shuffle!