Entrepreneur: Kristen Duncan

Business: WeeHands™ With Kristen - www.WeeHands™.com

Service: Sign Language Classes for Parents, Babies, Toddlers, Daycare and Special Needs Staff

Communicating with your Baby... A Precious Gift

Being quite stressed from the daily grind of commuting to corporate downtown, putting in long hours and reaping little personal reward, I decided to boldly give up my job and do some contract work with a friend. On the day I gave notice to my company to vacate my job and super benefits (all the dental you could dream of and limitless massages!) I took a pregnancy test and learned I was expecting. Fate tries hard to make us laugh.

While pregnant and now stressed about not working and being stressed, I had a bit of time to devote to preparing for baby. One of my searches on Amazon led me to a book all about teaching American Sign Language to hearing babies. Strange concept but I was fascinated as it explained that babies do not have the gross motor skills to communicate orally until they are 12 months. I had seen 4-5 month old babies that looked quite alert and could not imagine a child having to wait another 7-8 months to be able to let their parents know what they wanted.

In my eagerness to be the next super mom, I ordered the book and it arrived a few weeks before my little Jillian was born and came home. I had some experience with sign language in the past but it evaporated as did many of my skills during pregnancy. Some have still not returned, namely my memory.

My visions of relaxing with my new book and learning more sign language whilst my newborn slept were quickly shattered. When babies first come home they do not have it in the cards for mom to read, or even so much as open a book. Dust collected and I realized the old days of perusing a good book were beyond me. The only book I would see, was when I would grab my What to Expect in a panic at the first sign of a sneeze, too long a nap, a red bump on her skin or any variation in her eating habits.

A friend mentioned she was taking a Signing Babies™ class and I decided to join her since we had fun doing things together. We took an 8 week course with WeeHands™ and I was enraptured. Jillian was about 6 months when we started out and it was fun, easy to learn and all made so much sense. After a few weeks she started to sign milk back to us, would look for her dad if I signed 'where is daddy' and would sign cheese if she was hungry. At the end of the class the owner of WeeHands™ asked if I would be interested in teaching since I had so enjoyed my success with Jillian and loved to be around other moms and babies. I was permitted to become an independent contractor and WeeHands™ with Kristen was formed.

That spring Jillian was 7 1/2 months old, and my husband and I discussed the idea that we may start trying for a sibling in the fall of 2004. We learned on that May long weekend that the sibling was already on the way! I was just getting my feet wet starting to teach the classes and juggling motherhood and a gradual ease back to work. This time it would be my own business so suddenly I had to fit in advertising, free workshops, scouting out locations to hold classes, rent negotiations, marketing, handling registrations etc.

The joy of your own business is that you can dictate how much time you commit and when family needs are priority you scale back and devote more time when you are able. I taught up until 2 weeks before my due date with my second daughter Jaimie and resumed my classes when she was 5 weeks old. Many of my old students will recall me bringing her to class with me, a breast feeding pillow on my lap and me teaching them signs and songs over her head while she nursed. I became the queen of multitasking! The hard part with having two little ones 16 months apart, both under 3 years of age is that all of my computer work has to be done after 9:00pm when I am near exhausted. Every class or workshop I schedule has to be on a day my eldest is in daycare and the youngest can be with her Nana or my husband. So I can never just say 'yes' to a request without going through multiple channels.

Luckily our company has been teaching Signing since 2001 and we are becoming very well known through word of mouth and through many of the free workshops I do at the Ontario Early Years Centers. If I get phone calls the girls seem to choose that exact moment to see who can scream the loudest or both decide they want to play with the exact same toy even though there are 50 others all over the floor. It's hard to juggle everything but I think for some of us having something outside of being a mom is a great fit as it allows us sometimes to wear another hat and still feel that we have our own vibrant, educated identity and aren't just known as "baby's Mom"

I started teaching in Mississauga and I'm also now the instructor in Brampton, Milton, Burlington and Oakville. In Oakville I am very fortunate to teach at the Oak Park Neighbourhood Center, an area FULL of parents and new babies. I have taught many classes over the last 2 years and still stay in touch with most of the moms and have heard many wonderful stories from them about their children signing back with them. My biggest joy in teaching is meeting the other moms and I have often been told how great the classes are because not only are they learning the signing but also networking and they always hear my parenting trial and tribulations and can learn from them. The biggest complaint I receive on our evaluations at the end of the class is that all the moms wished the class was longer.

My youngest is now 15 months old and has about 40 signs that she uses every day. As she is now entering toddlerhood at warp speed the mini meltdowns can happen on a moment's notice. Luckily I know at least what it is she wants to eat, do or play with as she can sign to me. Jillian is 2 1/2 and speaks so fluently that she is often mistaken for an older child. She continuously amazed her doctor at her checkups with her vocabulary and her signing as well. It has been a fun, incredible and rewarding experience and I only decided to devote my time to making it a career after experiencing first hand the joy of communicating with my children at such an early age.

My best piece of advice to moms that are considering your own business. go with your instinct, do what you know and love. It is near impossible some days to find time to put towards work but if you can do a bit at a time you can start to build yourself a foundation for a job or career you will enjoy. Remember one day these babies of ours are going to be going off to school and they won't need us as much as they do right now. Carve out a little time to build something that you can enjoy once the little birds start to leave the nest.

WeeHands™ with Kristen offers classes to parents wanting to learn Sign Language to use with their hearing or non hearing children in the Peel/Halton area. Signing Babies™ introduces parents to the world of signing and teaches over 150 signs, several popular children's songs and discusses strategies for signing at home. Classes are now also offered for toddlers and preschoolers as many parents want their children to learn the 4th most used language in North America! WeeHands™ is also now being approached by several daycares that want to teach their staff signing so they will know how to communicate with all the children that are being taught at home. I have also just finished a training session with Brampton Caledon Community Living, teaching their staff about signing so they can utilize it in the workplace with individuals that have speech or developmental delays. Teaching proper American Sign Language is a very important criteria of WeeHands™.

Some other signing companies believe in 'making up' sign language for babies to utilize or allowing non-trained or non licensed staff to teach classes such as these. American Sign Language is a wonderful and beautiful language we are able to learn and share with the Deaf Community, and we respect their culture and ideals. We want to ensure we are teaching proper signs and that our children will grow up able to communicate in ASL, and also have another language they are fluent in. All our instructors continue to further our ASL education through workshops and classes.

Multitasking comes into play for me on the days I go to night school especially as I need to make sure the dinner/bath/bedtime materials are laid out just so for dad so he doesn't get the 'deer in headlights' look. Most important is to remember to get dressed for class just as I'm ready to leave so I don't arrive at school with play dough on my shoulder, pasta on my chest and some chalk hand print on my back. As a mom of two young girls I am loving a chance to continue my education and in case I didn't mention. all sign language classes have a strict 'no voices allowed' rule. After a day at home fielding sharing battles between sisters, dealing with terrible twos meltdown and just listening to ever present chaos... 3 hours of complete silence is a real gift!

www.WeeHands™.com
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