Not ASL related, just something I wrote for all of my friends raising little kids

When you are young, all you want is to enjoy life, live and be happy, and maybe be loved.  When you have kids, your whole world shifts.  All you want is for them to be happy, feel loved and be successful in their endeavors.

You aren't perfect, you make mistakes, say things you regret, love a little too much, protect them too much.  You want so badly for them to learn from your mistakes, but they can't.  They have to make their own mistakes and learn for themselves.

You think infancy is hard with the sleepless nights, the terrible twos, the awful fours.  The sassy 8's UGH middle school, their first love (and first heartbreak) there is getting them through high school and praying the will graduate.  Your sweet precious infant, your sweet toddler, will one day, I promise you, break your heart.  They have to, it is part of growing up and pushing away from you.  Your child will make you cry, you will wonder where you went wrong,but it's all a part of them growing up.

Yes, parenting is a challenge, but NOTHING is as hard as the day you realize you need to open your protective arms and let them go free into the world.  There is nothing more you can do right now, but just let go.  Some day, you can only hope they will come back to you.  Maybe a little bruised from life, but not broken if you have done it just right.  They will hopefully have a soft place to land in the unconditional love you have raised them with.

There are a few years between letting them go and them coming back to you.  I am still in that seemingly never ending limbo, but I will let you know how it goes in the end.  They are teetering on the right path, but I know they can stumble at any moment.  Instinctively my arms will go out to catch them, but I won't. All I can do is watch them fall and hope the skills I've given them over the years is enough for them to get up, brush off and move on.

11.2 daily video

Here I talk about how I like to make home made products, like shampoo, conditioner and face wash.  For my homemade shampoo recipe, take 1 TBSP baking soda in 8 oz water and mix it up.  Use a couple of tablespoons of mixture on roots and scrub your scalp, then rinse.  To condition, use 1-2 TBSP apple cider vinegar in 8 oz of water.  Use a couple of ounces on your hair (avoid your roots) to detangle and condition, then rinse.  For my homemade face wash, use 1/2 Castor Oil and 1/2 Grape Seed oil, shake up, and only use about a nickle size on your dry face and neck.  Safe to use around eyes too and gets makeup off very well.  Get a hot towel and steam for 1 minute.  Then gently wipe off.  All clean.  I will add more recipes for more of my home made items in the future. 

11.1 daily video

Interrupted again!  This time by one of my cats, Layla.

Oct 31 daily video

OMG I didn't edit this to remove the background noise because it really shows how hard it is to make a silent video in my house.  I had 5 teenagers yelling and acting foolish, my husband goofing around and my dog freaking out on me trying to jump up on me.  WOW.  It's amazing I got through this in one take.  So it's not perfect, and I pause during the craziness trying to figure out what I was talking about.  Here is my daily video.  Happy Halloween. :-)

Summary week of 10.23

This week we worked on a new skill of copysign and reviewed signer's perspective by using graph paper.

Tuesday, Carl introduced us to copysign, which is mimicking the signs, gestures and facial expression of another signer.  First, Carl had us copy him, while he signed a story about Lego people, Deb and Mike meeting at college.  Next, Carl had us copysign a man interpreting a song (but without sound)  That was challenging, because in some areas he went fast & was using unfamiliar signs.  It was also a good lesson in signer's perspective because it is easy to follow someone in the opposite direction.

 Thursday, we did more copysigning by following a video of Carl.  Then we reviewed signer's perspective using graph paper.  The signer has to show where certain signs were on the graph paper by giving a visual starting point (usually a corner) and counting over the squares where the next sign was.  It was the job of the people writing the signs in the squares to reverse what we were seeing and put the signs in the correct place.  If the signer went to their right, it looks like they were going left to the people watching, so we needed to keep that in mind.

daily video 10.30

Talking about my other family (my pets)

10.29 daily video

In this video I tell a little more about my 3 kids