Your Baby Can Read "Rant"

When I was pregnant, I saw this infomercial for Your Baby Can Read. Then I surfed the forums to find that people have a love-hate relationship with this product and creator. Some either love it (mostly educators) or hate it with a passion (mostly stay at home moms). I have also talked amongst my friends and they seem to think its just "ok". But I could never figure out why they thought it was just "ok" when they had never purchased the product. The hate forums are mostly saying that the product doesn't work. There are thousands of people stating this (as well as quite a few that say it works great). I laugh because one mother wrote "I showed this to my 2 year old for 2 weeks straight and she didn't even watch it. She was completely disinterested and she showed no interest in reading after watching the videos". Hmmm. Another participant complained that the only way for this program to work is if she sits down her her little one and reads all the books and does all the flash cards on a regular basis with her as well as watching the videos. She wanted her money back. What is wrong with my generation? Of course you have to do it ALL on a regular basis. Another forum writer wrote about how the program is nothing more than simple word recognition and that she too tried to return it. Duh. I had not idea that it was such a controversy to teach our kids how to read. I thought word recognition and repetition IS how we learn to read. Sometimes I feel like people just want the easiest route for parenting. I am not a huge fan of Dr. Laura but I would have to agree with her when she says "If you can't raise them, then don't have them". I understand that peoples lives get busy and difficult, especially with kids. But I am hard pressed to believe that you don't have time to teach your child how to read but you do have time to go on the internet and find a site to complain about having to do it.

Back to Your Baby Can Read. I love it so far. I actually only have to videos at the present time and I am in the market for the rest of the program. The videos are the same thing over and over. Songs, words games, words and actions, etc. It is not a miracle product by any means. Its actually an ingenious program of dvds, books, and flash cards. Very simple, clean, and easy to do. Words then actions and a little bit of music. What's not to like.

Boon Squirt

I don't know why this is but when I first had Nyla (and even on through the first 6 months), I thought that I needed EVERYTHING. Whenever I came upon a situation that would call for something to make it easier to do, I would have all these ideas pop into my head about what I could either invent or purchase. Most of the time it was inventions of course and then a little googling would reveal that someone had stolen my idea and made millions. It always seems to go that way. Anywho, the boon squirt was just such an invention. As I was feeding Nyla one day, I just couldn't seem to get the food shoveled into her mouth fast enough. Who knew that once babies discovered there is more to life that gross warm milk and a chewy nipple, that anything on a spoon tastes exactly like birthday cake. So here I was with Nyla and her liquid carrots, literally trying to figure out how to just pure the bowl down her throat (not to mention that my fat fingers can only grip a teeny tiny spoon for so long), that the idea came to me. A spoon with a food filled handle!! Cha Ching. Shortly thereafter, my two (more seasoned with such fiascoes) sister-in-laws told me there was a such a thing as a feeding spoon. So I set out on my treasure hunt, and what do you know, like a beacon of light there it was right in my local target baby feeding isle. DANG YOU BOON. You are always stealing my ideas! Of course, being the bargain shopper that I am, I did not settle for target. Nope. I did a thorough search for the cheapest one on the block. drugstore.com or Burlington Coats. The funny things is, I used this for weeks before I realized that it really is only good for traveling. It just adds one more step to my busy day or having to take the food out of the container and put it in another container. Blah. Oh well, it was awesome for our vacation.