Baby Signs

Ella makes the sign for "fish".  Finding Nemo was on at the Doctor's office

Except for Madeleine, all of our babies have done baby signs.  I remember clearly the first time I saw a baby using them.  My niece Rachel was about nine months old and was over for dinner with her parents when David looked up at our ceiling fan, made the "fan" sign and Rachel copied him.  We were taking care of her overnight about six months later and her signs for "drink" and especially, for her special friend "bear" were very helpful to us.  We were sold.

We have never been thorough enough with signs to have the kind of communication you read about in baby sign books but the signs we teach are useful and fun and we treat it more as a game than anything else.  My favorite of Ella's signs is "please".  She runs her hand wildly across her chest while pointing and shrieking for whatever she wants.  I think she's missing the point!

Today, I took the kids to the "horse playground", a park about a mile from our house that doesn't have much of a playground but does have a stable.  The horses are always out in the field during the day.  They're very friendly and always eat grass from the girls' hands.  The girls like to pet them and name them.  When Ella saw the horses, she started madly making the sign for "dog".  I guess I can understand her confusion.  The dog she sees the most is my mother-in-law's huge labradoodle Nick who looks a lot like a horse.  I tried to teach her the sign for "horse" and she did it two or three times but kept coming back to "dog".

She'll be talking before we know it and the fun of baby signs will be over for awhile.  I'm trying to enjoy it while it lasts.