I meant to share this earlier- it's just a super handy dandy thingy that I found at the Dollar Tree ( so it is now $1.25) I keep my charging cables in here and can always find them easily. I keep it in my purse on a daily basis and when we traveled it was just so handy. All patterns and a few different shapes. Mine is about 2 1/2 or 3 inches square. and open- (it also has a net pocket inside. Gotta love it.

I bought these sweatpants and matching sweatshirt (in pink) for DD last fall, and put them away for Christmas. Totally random gift and they were on a big sale so super inexpensive. She loved them. And she is super picky about her ”athletic wear.” More recently, I bought myself a pair and I also love them and have been wearing them a lot over the past two weeks (covid in da house). I see they are on sale again so roughly $20.

Found this antique toy dresser at the GW today. $5.99. Looked it up when I got home--it was made by J.Bubb in London, early 19th century. Found one that sold a few years ago for $225, but it was missing all the escutcheons and 1 pull. Mine is in excellent condition, all hardware intact and with the maker's mark. I can't believe this beautiful toy is almost 200 years old!

My daughter started teaching my grandson some sign language at an early age. I was surprised how quickly he picked some basic signs up and was able to communicate some basic needs/wants. I’m not sure exactly how old he was when he first started using some sign language - but I know that he was able to communicate with some basic signs before he was 8 months old. He would rub his tummy to say ”please” (he‘s now 18 months old and has been correctly making the circles with his palm up on his chest for a few months). It was so cute - I had just brought a new puppy home and had put up some temporary gates to limit Baxter‘s access - and when I would leave the family room to grab something out of the kitchen, my grandson would sit by the gate rubbing his tummy because he wanted to follow me. It does make it difficult for nana when he’s asking for (or to do) something that he’s not supposed to have (example, he really wants to play with the pen holder up that’s up on my desk in the study). He looks up at me with his big beautiful eyes, and rubs his tummy (now chest) so emphatically - and looks so ADORABLE when doing it that it makes me feel terrible saying ”no.” One day he kept emphatically signing something - and I was drawing a complete blank (hadn’t slept much for a couple nights) - and finally realized that he was signing ”more” once he added ”please” afterwards. @beaglesdoitbetter - I also feel like I was able to understand the wants/needs of my two daughters when they were babies based upon various cues they each gave me. Whether or not to teach sign language wasn’t something that was discussed back then (I feel old!) Of course, neither was scheduled ”tummy time” - I just naturally sometimes placed my daughters on their stomachs when they were babies (the AAP changed babies’ sleeping position between the birth of my first daughter and my second one - when my oldest was born, we were told to roll blankets up and position them so that the baby slept on his/her side = not on tummy to avoid breathing issues + not on back to avoid risk of choking if baby spit up) I was curious about whether signing could potentially delay his verbal communication (my daughter called to ask my opinion because her MIL told her it would). I did some scientific research on it - I limited my research to studies/articles published in the PubMed database + evaluated the credentials of the authors + what controlled experimental conditions were used in the studies (yes, I’m a science ”geek” - one of my undergrad degrees is in chemical engineering - and since I became an attorney instead of using my chem E degree, I enjoy doing little research projects like this 😂). Based upon my research, signing appears to promote, rather than delay, verbal communication. It is a difficult area to study. One reason is because not all parents define ”verbal communication” the same way (example, whether a parent believes that his/her baby crying in response to being told ”no” = verbal communication). Another reason is because children typically say their first word sometime between 12 - 18 months = a fairly large range. I can’t even imagine being a new mom today with so many opinions out there about what should/shouldn’t be done with a newborn/baby/toddler! While being able to easily look up some things for reassurance is helpful (+ being able to reach out on forums to other moms/parents) - having SO MANY OPINIONS (especially when presented as facts) could be extremely overwhelming for some new moms/parents)! All I had was, ”What to Expect The First Year” + my mom (I called my mom 99% of the time if I had a question - didn’t really read the book - but did read, ”What to Expect When Expecting”).