Extra-curricular activities

Over the past month, we have spent our weekends chauffeurring Ruby to her various baby activities. On Saturday mornings, we go to our baby sign language class held at the local Sports Basement. One of the moms in my playgroup teaches the class. Baby sign language came about from studies showing that children raised in households with one deaf parent and one speaking parent showed increased language and communication skills. The idea is that babies are able to communicate their needs and desires long before they develop the physical dexterity to speak words. Therefore, signing alleviates the frustration during the period of time before babies are able to easily communicate through speaking.

There are lots of videos on Youtube of babies signing, and it's pretty amazing to see.



Ruby is not really doing any signs yet, although it's hard to tell if she is trying to sign milk (opening and closing the hand like milking a cow) or just grasping at imaginary air objects. On the other hand, Steve and I now have a pretty good sign language vocabulary and could carry on a rousing conversation about colors, animals, and family members. We don't know how much baby sign language will help Ruby communicate because she seems like she is a pretty vocal baby, but Ruby always has lots of fun in class.



Perhaps an indication of the kind of student Ruby will be, she always sits attentively and listens for the whole hour of class.



On Sunday mornings, Ruby has her baby swim class at the UCSF pool. The class is quite popular, so there are usually dozens of babies bobbing around in the pool, including a fellow playgroup baby and a fellow birthing class baby.



Each class involves having the babies practice swimming on their tummies and on their backs while kicking their feet. There are also several water-related sing-alongs such as Old McDonald Had a Pool and If You're Happy and You Know It, Make a Splash. It took Ruby a few classes to warm up to swimming. During the first two classes, she squished her face against my chest and hung onto my swimsuit for dear life. However, in the last few classes she has acclimated significantly and is quite happy to paddle around and kick her little feet.

With these classes and our working moms playgroup meeting every other week, our weekend schedules are always filled with baby activities. This I'm sure is indicative of how our weekends will be for many, many years to come. Long gone are the weekends of sleeping in, reality TV on Bravo, and breakfast at 3pm.