A Few of My Favorite Things

The other day, Mary Laine climbed into her carseat and said "I can do everything". My first thought was that we were going to have to work on her humility a bit - all of our praise must have given her a big head. But then she finished, "... through Him who gives me strength." It was one of those moments. We have been listening to a CD of Bible verses, and this was the first time that she has randomly said one of them back to me.

So, I decided that I would share a few of my favorite purchases that we've made for Mary Laine.

Seeds Family Worship - We have several Christian Kids' CDs and also the Steve Green Hide 'Em In Your Heart (which is also great), but the Seeds has been my favorite. They set verses to catchy tunes, and they usually include the reference in the song. Mary Laine loves them and has started to sing along. I would recommend these even if you don't have kids - I am learning from it as well. I bought the first (and they sent me an extra CD to share with a friend), but then downloaded the rest on iTunes.

Signing Time - This was a recommendation from my cousin. They are videos that were made by a woman with a deaf child. We got the first few thinking that Mary Laine may pick up a few signs from them, but I think that it has taught her so much more than that. First of all, she knows a ton of signs (she has been teaching them to us lately - and we both took two semesters of Sign Language in college!). It has also been great in helping to develop her vocabulary and her concept that words have meaning behind them. For example, they teach "feeling" signs (grumpy, scared, excited...), and so she can understand when she's feeling grumpy, give it a name, and we can talk about it. The DVDs claim that sign language will "virtually eliminate the terrible twos". I would wholeheartedly DISAGREE with that - just because Mary Laine can express her feelings doesn't mean that she's always happy about my reaction to them (like when I tell her "no"). But, I would still say that they are BY FAR one of our favorite learning tools. Each video is about 30 minutes long. We skipped the "Baby" videos and went straight into Volume 1.

There are several more things that we have gotten that I love, but naptime is almost over and I have to get some things done. Maybe I'll get around to a follow-up post later.