Talking hands

My good friend Kristin and I took a 6-week baby sign course several months ago, it was a lot of fun and I learned a whole bunch of signs for things that I talk about all the time like "book" and "changing diapers". I also learned some signs that I don't know if I'll ever use like "grizzly bear" or even umm...female lady parts.  (Side story about that: the teacher was teaching us to sign the song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and asked if anyone could guess the sign for "diamond", I did the obvious and made a diamond shape with my thumb and index finger and apparently that's the sign for 'vagina'! oooops! Now whenever I sing that song with Natallie I have to make sure I am not signing "up above the world so high, like a vagina in the sky!)

Anyways, after modelling signs for just about everything I could remember from class, Natallie starting signing more ! (you can click on it if you want to see what the sign for 'more' looks like). I'm simplying the signs for her since she has the fine motor skills of a walrus right now so she just claps her hands like this:

This was the only sign she had for the last couple months but just in the last few weeks, she has learned several more. Natallie hates being strapped down in the highchair so when she is done her food, she starts to whine and climb out of her highchair and I relentlessly worked on her signing all done . Now when she starts whinning, I can ask, "are you all done?" and she will do this:

Isn't that wonderful?! The sign for milk is like milking the udder of a cow. Although this sign is a bit degrading and makes me feel even more like Natalle's 24-hour dairy bar, I am still pretty stoked that she can sign for milk when she wants it. However, if I don't nurse her right after she signs for milk, she resorts to lifting up my shirt and signing milk as if she was saying, "Mom! I know where you hide the good stuff! Do I really need to go get it myself now?!!"

And finally, the last sign that is really making communication fun is the sign for help. After a month or more of trying to get her pudgy little hands to make the sign, I decided to say "help me" instead and Natallie now taps her chest when she needs me to do something for her.

I love how creative she is getting with her signs. In the video you see Natallie signing for "help me" because she wanted me to help her open the shower door so she could invade Simon's privacy while he was taking a shower. Today, she wanted to go outside and play and crawled to the front door, pulled herself to a stand and starting tapping at the door and then signing "help me". So cute! It kind of reminds me of the days when my dog, Daisy, would take the leash and bring it to me and wait by the front door.

Natallie had a playdate with Naomi, a girl in the neighbourhood who is 3 months older than her and I was suprised that Naomi could actually talk! She said "Hi Nat!" and labelled the colors of the little cups they were scooping sand with. This little 17-month old would hold up the little cup and shriek "buuu!" as she held up the blue cup. 

I can't wait til Natallie is talking, that will be fun. But for now, I'm just signing as I sing "If you're happy" and being really careful to do the right sign when I sing "Twinkle Twinke Little Star"....