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Paul’s Sign Language

Submitted entry: Well, I’m writing this entry in town for a change. I’m out alone on a business call and am picking Sage & I up a pizza for dinner. It’s pretty strange to be in town alone. Usually I have Sage and Paul along for the ride. The business call is for a local law firm that’s having a little trouble with their CD-ROM drives. Nothing big. Today was just time for me to do an estimate. I’m going back on Saturday morning to actually do the work in order that I might avoid disrupting their business. I figure with my flexible schedule a Saturday is as good as a Tuesday and as such it really doesn’t matter to me that I’m working a weekend. And I know how much it helps businesses to have those kind of calls.

Oh, and before I forget, several people have asked about Paul’s signing and particularly is he suffering from hearing loss. The answer is no. We’d read and heard from others quite a lot about the value of signing with children from a young age to get lines of communication open early. Speech is a pretty complex operation for a little one to figure out along with everything else. However, a sign of their own devising (slapping his thigh for nursing, sucking the palm of his hand for thirsty/water, blowing for fire or flapping his arms for bird) is a great deal easier for them to learn and so they pick it up pretty fast. He’s figuring out several new ones each week. If you’d like to know more, look up a book called “Baby Signs” which talks a lot about how to sign with your kids and also a little about the research that has been done about it. From my non-scientific point of view it’s a wonderful thing and I’d recommend it to anyone.

Other than that not much new has been going on. I’ve been brainstorming about how to set up the chimney - the plans we had included plans for how to support the over 100lb structure of the chimney. With the single-walled chimney the weight is probably under 20 lbs. and can actually require much less support. We’ll just need something to keep it from rotating and pointing at the ground or blowing over.

That’s good timing - pizza’s done and I’m on my way home.

Cool Outside, Toasty Inside

Tiny Pieces