Syntia playing hide and seek lol
Sign Language for Baby and Parents
When we noticed that Syntia started using gestures to try to bring a message across, we took a dive into the baby signing world. Baby sign language is a popular method to give babies the ability to communicate their needs more effectively and specifically, especially before they have mastered the articulating and sounding of words. …
Travel Mug Parenting Hack
Parenting hack Always drink coffee, tea or any other hot beverage in a travel mug when you’re with your little people! I had to learn this one the hard way … When Syntia was about 6 months old a cup of coffee (that had just been reheated) got bumped over on the table and the …
Sacrificing Yourself for Your Child
As a parent you hold your child’s well being as a top priority and know that if need-be, you’ll place your child’s needs before your own. But does sacrificing yourself for your child always make you a better parent? I share in this recording my personal experiences and lessons learnt in the process of trying …
Maite Made her First Mei-Tai! (Say it 10x Fast!)
Made my first mei-tai!! Syntia and I both have become fond of using a wrap to go for walks together. With her getting bigger and my elastic wrap being too hot, cumbersome and elastic, I started researching what the next step would be. After deciding on a mei-tai, the next step was finding out how …
Double Whammy
When I go silent on social media it usually means I have something going on in my life that needs more of my focus and attention. These past two weeks were no different. Around the same time that Syntia’s second top tooth broke through, she developed a viral infection in her gums (herpetic stomatitis) – …
A New Outlook on Exercising
Maite continues to share how her decision to value herself and her body opened up a process of questioning her understanding and approach to exercising. As she asked herself questions and answered them, she found herself straying further and further off the beaten path, eventually changing her way of exercising into something she had never …
![Cesar gave Syntia his train tracks about a year ago, and before they were hers, she would play with them together with Cesar. She's had a ton of time to learn the different pieces, how to put them together and build a track, but for some reason, she DID NOT want to build a track by herself and most of all preferred to just watch as someone else built the track for her.
Lj and I knew she was perfectly capable of building a track for herself and we tried to support her to start small and show herself that she can do it. Or that we'd be here if she gets stuck, but she can at least try on her own. Any such attempts, however, were met with an absolute and firm refusal. So, we did it with her, or for her.
We started wondering, is this little girl really just taking advantage of us at this point? Are we entertaining this too much? Should we push harder? We knew she could do it, she knew she could do it, but for some reason she just didn't want to do it, at least, not yet.
And then one day, out of the blue, she takes out her blocks and starts building a track... by herself. Lj quietly waived me over, pointing at her, then signing 'shhht', lol - didn't want to disturb the moment. The track you see in the pic is the first one she built by herself. It wasn't a "beginner's" track like a simple circle or a straight line, it was a more intricate design laid out exactly and precisely how she wanted it to be, including all the elements she wanted to have as a part of it. Kabam, out of the blue.
There are other things where Syntia 'took her sweet time', like learning how to walk and potty training, where it was clear at some point that she was able to do it, but for some reason, pulled back or didn't want to do it all by herself just yet. It's so easy as parents to freak out over that, to think that children should develop skills in a particular way, like 'starting small' or doing something by yourself as soon as you're able to. But not all kids are the same in this. [Continued in comments..]](https://scontent-dfw5-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.29350-15/135216034_868657797266702_107582540258970761_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c4dd86&_nc_ohc=Z1V8WJUUqosAX-4LmjA&_nc_ht=scontent-dfw5-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&oh=00_AfCJjAXVxtNiIi6gvUUl0MZd6cdkXtaHW6r2JeZgYPVE-A&oe=64DB2E92)
