Welcome Elconnelly! I've never heard of hothousing, but I think it can't hurt to expose kids to lots of things. I learnt piano when I was 4 (admittedly it was coz I was the bratty little sister that wanted to do what my big brother was doing... and they were only 10min lessons) but I don't remember not being able to read music, and music can definitely help develop logic & math skills.

I dunno about language classes.. I'd only be inclined to have the baby learn more than one language if you could speak it yourself. Both DH & I speak english, altho DH grew up in Singapore.. he never really learned more than schoolboy Mandarin. He's now learning Mandarin through his work, so I'd kinda like all of us to learn it, coz the best time to learn a hard language like that is when you're young, so I'd like DH to speak Manadarin to our baby

I agree with not pushing for a superbaby. But it certainly can't hurt to make what you read to the baby and the games you play 'intelligent' ones.

I was reading fluently before I went to school, and mum said she never taught me to read, just read to me a lot. So it's definitely through interaction and quality time doing things that babies/kids learn.