We used several aids to crawling with my daughter, with the same idea as the harness: decreasing friction from body weight.  The main one was just a ceramic dinner plate.  We have hardwood floors, and with the plate under her belly the smooth surface was enough to let her move.  We joked about using one of those disks that are made for moving furniture - you know the round things you put under the corners of a couch and then then it slides easily?  Those are even supposed to work on carpet.  We never tried it, but it should work.

The problem, and the reason I'm going for a crawling track this time, was that she always went in circles.  It really frustrated her.  I would put my hands behind her feet or on either side of her like the walls of a track, and that helped, but I couldn't sit there forever, and then she'd get annoyed.

I just found at the local salvation army a pad from a pack'n'play with almost inch-thick foam.  I think I'm going to use that for the basis of my crawling track.  It has a stiffened base, so it might work to just make two U-shaped supports, one for each end, to hold it in the right shape.  Or I might still need the whole track.  But the pad was only a dollar, so this won't be expensive!  I'm excited

I don't think you're mean at all.  If it's not something your daughter wants or needs, why waste time and money on it?  Birthdays are a great opportunity to give a fun gift... but not if she won't care.  My daughter was 14 months at Christmas and got one present - a little tykes car she could sit in that we found at a thrift store.  She was thrilled.  We spent maybe $5 at the dollar store to fill her stocking and she was perfectly happy.  There's no need to do more than the child will care about.  There's nothing mean about a decision like that.  And she'll appreciate the savings one day :-).

I'm working on ideas for an infant crawling track as well.  I used makeshifts with my first baby (a yoga mat between a wall and a heavy chest for a flat track, the yoga mat on a card table on the lovesac for an inclined track - I know that sounds horribly unsafe but I had a hand on either side of her at all times so it's not like she could hurt herself) but I'd rather have the real thing this time around.

My current plan is a nap mat.  They usually have up to an inch of foam and blankets on one side, a slick surface on the other.  I want to get a piece of plywood and cut two pieces off, then nail them on as sides.  My husband is good at woodwork, so I'm not worried about that part.  A plastic slide sounds like genius, though.  If I see one at a yard sale this summer, I'll get it.  That would be easier than the wood.  And line it (or the wooden track if that's what I do) with the nap mat upside down.  That will provide the foam padding and the slightly slick surface.  I haven't decided how to attach the mat; we'll see when I have the pieces in front of me.

I'm pretty sure I can do it for $30-$40 and a little time spent nailing parts together.  Less if I can find a plastic slide at a yard sale.  My oldest crawled much younger than any of her cousins, a week past 6 months, and I'm sure my makeshifts helped.  I think a real crawling track will be even better.

We just built our brachiation ladder, so I can't speak to results yet, but it cost us just over $100 in parts (lumber and hardware).  That was a little more than I expected, but the two Saturdays we spent building it were tons of fun (my husband is good with tools and I've never done anything of the sort, and my 17 month old loved "helping").

I cannot do the monkey bars at all.  Never have been able to, not even as a child.  (And I'm not obese, btw, but very fit, a good swimmer... I just can't do them.)  So I'm excited to use them myself.  My girl's been sick for the past week, so we haven't used it yet, but I look forward to having my husband spot me until I can do them myself.  And my daughter has been pointing at them and saying "Swing, swing!" ever since we put the ladder part together.

Honestly, I don't think a brachiation ladder is necessary.  My 17 month old is moving up Doman's chart at the "superior" rate even without it.  He uses it for manual competence; I find that Montessori practical life experiences and toys develop manual competence very well.  However, he also argues that brachiation develops the lungs and visual convergence, which sound like good ideas to me.  That's why I finally decided to build one.  Plus, as I said, I've never been able to do it, and it's an ability I'd like to give my kids since I don't have it.

I'll post again when I've been using it a bit and tell whether I see any results.

If you are a fan of schedules, I highly recommend making a daily plan with activities for every half hour or even fifteen minute block.  Obviously you're not going to be looking at your watch and saying, "Oh, I know you're having fun coloring but now it's time to sing a song so you have to stop," but just so that when those inevitable moments come when you're sitting on the couch and your child is fussy and you just don't want to do anything, you don't have to come up with an idea AND implement it; you just look at the schedule.  My 17 month old also seems to like the consistancy; she's less difficult when I follow a plan.  I'm sure this won't work for everyone, but it might be worth a try; I love it.  (The idea comes from the book "On Becoming Toddlerwise," part of the controversial "Babywise" series; I like it taken with a dilution of common sense, but some people hate it.)

Also, while you're waiting to save up for LR, try the free powerpoint downloads here on the Brillkids site.  There are thousands, on all different topics, and they don't require the kind of time paper flash cards do.  My original plan was no screentime for my daughter, so I started making paper cards, but like you I found it too much to keep up.  Downloading a powerpoint and showing it daily for five or so days, then switching to a new one, doesn't provide the same lesson plan that LR or Doman does, but it's bettter than nothing.  It's helped me a lot.  There are powerpoints with math too, but I never found one that could do more than flash the dots; to doequations, I've been on my own.

It sounds like you're doing great things with Daniel.  Good luck with your goals!

My daughter will be fascinated by words that sound the same, like the 'nose' and 'knows' example.  She speaks lots of English and a little French, and her ASL is somewhere in between.  A month or so ago, she realized that she could pronounce the French word "chat," cat, which sounds like shah.  Well, the best she could do was "sa."  She said it and signed cat, and I nodded and repeated "chat" back.  Then she ran off and got her book Baby Faces, which has different emotions, and opened to the the "sad" page and said "sa"!  She pronounced them exactly the same.  I spent most of the day differentiating between the two, while she just said "sa" and "sa" and "sa."  Don't know why this was so fascinating to her, but she loved it.

I just wanted to add something to my above post:

I love schedules.  I get bored easily at home with my daughter if I don't have a specific plan of what to do when.  But to reassure all of you who are not schedule people and find restricting a child this way cruel and unusual (I have lots of good friends like this), this is NOT set in stone.  I ask her before doing any of these things; if she says no, most of them are optional.  (Not the nap, but most of the rest.)  If she asks to go on a walk as soon as she's dressed, we go.  If she wants to stay out longer, or go back in after five minutes, we do.  This is just an idea.  And if you look, most of the things I have taking half an hour don't take that much time.  So there's lots of free time in there, even if it's not labelled "free play."

I guess maybe more EL people might be schedule people than my playgroup friends, but I find myself justifying having a schedule fairly often (I breastfed on a loose schedule too - the horror!), so I wanted to make that clear.

I don't feel like I do much when I read others' posts, but when I come to list it, it's a lot!  Maybe that's because this is my ideal; it doesn't happen every day, by any stretch of the imagination.  I'm also pregnant with an active toddler, and sometimes I just can't keep up with my plans.  Oh, well.

8- up, breakfast, dress, etc - I try to do some Montessori practical life stuff here, like teaching her to put on her socks.  I also try to read a book every time we eat (often, as you'll see).
9 - Doman word flash powerpoint (she LOVES this and will watch it several times in a row), making math equations on the floor with dots (not so favored, 1-2 equations and she's done), and reading board books
9:30 - Walk the dog and/or play in the backyard.  This is our "nature study" and also physical excellence time - she's learning to climb the ladder to the slide and we're adding a brachiation ladder this week.
10 - Snack - more practical life if possible, preparing or cleaning up after the snack
10:30 - Free play while I read my scriptures, then share a scripture with her.  I try to keep Montessori toys available and rotate weekly, but I'm not always good at that.
11 - Words again, building sentances with my Doman flash cards,  She often requests EK; I do it only on request.  I'd like to add introducing a new Montessori activity here or maybe some creative play with puppets or something...
11:30 - Music and Art time: sitting on my lap while I play my Hanon and sing along in Solfedge (she's starting to sing too) and letting her play while I sing the Solfedge, then playing with musical instruments (ideally) while I do 5-10 more minutes of practicing.  Then free drawing; art might be more organized when she's a little older.
12 - Lunch, more Montessori
12:30 - Clean something: dishes, sweeping, dusting, etc.  Usually she's a big fan of this.
1 - Naptime!  And boy, do I need it.  :-)  She is not allowed out of her room for 2 hours, whether she chooses to sleep or not, and I do my Hypnobabies work and sleep myself.  Before I was pregnant I had free time here to prepare learning activities, read, do something fun... Siiigh.
3 - Snack, Montessori again.  I'm not gaining enough weight this pregnancy (keeping up with this girl, I don't wonder why), so we eat often.
3:30 - Get out of the house!  We have storytime at the library, playgroup, and visiting my mom (homebound caring for my grandma) once a week each; I want to start swimming the other two days a week, but we often end up shopping those days.
4:30ish - Clean and prepare dinner; she usually helps a bit and then goes off for free play.  I really should do words/sentances/math again here...
5:30 - Daddy's home, yay!  I don't try to plan after that; we just do what seems fun.

I don't use LM, but I know it's based on Doman, only flashing the dots on a screen rather than cards.  It's not just red dots; you can show 30 dogs, trucks, birds, or whatever your child really likes right then.  I also know that it moves a lot slower than Doman; it takes a year to do the four functions rather than three months.  That might be because it's only shown once or twice a day.  Maybe someone has used both and could share more?

I'll do my best to give an overview.  It is very complicated for the mom; expect to read this multiple times (I read the book over and over).  If you can get your hands on the book "How to teach your baby math," it would help a lot, but I realize shipping costs or buying new is not always feasible (I've only read it from the library myself).

The pre-step is to make cards with dots on them, starting with a card with 100 dots and working down to 1 dot.  Doman suggests a 14 in square of posterboard and red pre-gummed stickers; I used a pack of regular A4 cardstock (bought on sale at a local craft store) and a bottle of red tempura paint with a sponge applicator top that was round.  Other people in this forum have suggested a cork dipped in red ink and a few other things.  Making the cards took a couple of hours and was annoying, but worth it.  Write the number of dots in each of the four corners of the card, so no matter in which orientation you hold it, you know what the number is.

The theory is that babies are born with the ability to instantly perceive quantity; they know how many dots are on the card without counting.  They lose this ability between age 3 and 5 usually.  What you are doing is first labelling quantities (this many dots is called 4) and then helping the baby intuit the rules of arithmetic (what adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing means you are doing to the quantity) in the same way a baby of this age intuits the rules of grammar from listening to you speak.

Step one is showing the dots to your baby.  Take the numbers 1-5, sit facing your child (or hold a smaller child in your lap), and show them as quickly as possible, no more than 1 second per card, saying the number as you show it.  Act happy and only do it as long as your child is having fun.  Once you've done 5 cards, put them away for a while (how long is up to you; do something different with your child before doing more cards).  Doman suggests using two sets of five cards every day (eg 1-5 and 6-10); I found that to be too much and only did one set a day.  Each set should be shown 3 times a day, and you shuffle the cards between each showing..

Do this with 1-5 (and 6-10 if you're doing two sets a day) for one week.  From then on, every day take the lowest-numbered card out of each set and retire it, then add the next higher card (retire 1, add 11).

Once you've retired 1-20, continue showing number sets three times a day, and add showing equations using retired cards three times a day.  (Make sure the sessions are still a little bit apart, even though you're now doing 6 or 9 sessions a day.  Each one should still only take a few seconds.)  Start with addition.  Take the 1 card, the 3 card, and the 4 card, and show the number as you say it when you tell the baby "1 plus 3 equals 4."  Do three equations like that in a set (I only did 2) and do three different sets every day (don't repeat equations).

The theory here is that the baby will learn what "plus" means just like they learn that adding an -s to a word makes it plural.  You don't explain it; you just give lots of examples.

For two weeks you show one or two sets of numbers three times a day each and three sets of addition equations a day, for a total of six or nine sessions of math daily.  After two weeks, stop showing addition and start showing subraction.  Two weeks after that, stop showing subtraction and replace it with multiplication.  Two weeks after that, stop multiplication and show division. 

Somewhere in there you will finish all 100 dot cards.  Show a blank card and tell your baby it is named "zero."  Then stop doing number cards entirely; only do three sets of three different equations every day.

It's now been about three months and you've done all the dot cards and the four basic operations.  Now you can go different directions, like only showing the answer card, or showing two possible answers and letting the baby pick the correct one.  (5+7= what?  13 or 25.  Let the baby grab the correct card.)  Try 3 and then 4 step equations (1+3+7=11).  More ideas are in the book; if you do it and get to this point, I'd ask on the forums for more ideas.

That's a basic overview.  I hope it's not too confusing.  I thought it sounded crazy when I read the book, but I really wanted to find out if it worked.  I guess I don't know for sure yet, but it seems to be doing something.  It's fun, too!

My one-year-old and I love tomatoes; every day we go out to the garden and strip all the cherry tomatoes that are remotely ripe and eat them.  Everyone in the family knows how much she loves tomatoes.  At the restaurant last night, my aunt offered her the tomato from her salad.  My baby eagerly took a bite, then made and absolutely disgusted face and spit it out.  It was hilarious.  She refused to touch another bit of it.  It was fun to see that she really could tell the difference between my home-grown, fresh, organic heirloom tomatoes and the typical store-bought/restaurant fare.  I'm very excited about it.

This morning we were trying to convince my one year old to sit on her potty.  Normally I show her her flashcards, but we're away from home and I didn't bring them.  My husband started telling her math facts without the cards:  "12x4=48." Baby smiles and bounces. "6x6=36."  More big smiles.  Then on accident he said, "3x9=21."  The baby frowned at him and shook her head.  He corrected himself: "3x9=27. 3x7=21."  Big smiles from the baby!

I'm absolutely amazed.  I don't think I've shown her the equation 3x9 more than once.  But she knew he was wrong!  Astounding!  This gives me a lot more faith in Doman math.  I'm going to work harder on it once we get home tomorrow.

We started when she was about 4 months, I think, but I haven't been very consistent at all.  We hardly did it at all from six to nine months and then I just picked up where I'd left off.  I don't think 10 months is too late to start at all.  I would start slow - we only do 1 set of 5 dot cards and 3 sets of 2 equations each per day.  (Doman recommends 3 sets of dots and 3 sets of 3 equations every day.)  But just do as much as your child likes and have fun!

I've been doing Doman Math dots and equations for a while now, and I'm never certain whether my 10 month old understands any of it.  Then the other day when I set up division equations, the 2 card and the 1 card must have been stuck together.  I was flipping cards quickly, with her sitting across from me, and not really looking as I said, "46 divided by 2 equals 23."  And she gave me this look of complete confusion - "Mommy, what are you talking about?"  I'd never seen a reaction like that to any flashing, so I looked down.  What I'd actually flashed was 46, 2, 1.  She knew that was wrong!  I don't know if she just knew that 1 and 23 are not the same thing, but she definitely registered that something was incorrect in what just happened.  I was so excited, I just had to share.  Real proof that this is working!  Yay!

I don't have internet at home except for our Kindle, which has 3G.  When we first got it at Christmas, I signed in to brillkids and posted on the forums.  At some point (months ago, I don't remember exactly when), the site stopped letting me log in from the Kindle. It says I'm trying to "access the site from an unauthorized domain."  I can still read posts as a guest, but I can't log in.  It's annoying!  Is there any way around this?