Happy St. Patrick's Day

These pictures are a few months old, but I've been waiting till today to post them! The cute outfit came from our friend Courtney who is currently living in Ireland.

This has been a week we'll be glad to be done with. It started with Reed getting the flu on Saturday night and by Monday evening, Gerry had gotten it too. Just as Reed seemed to be getting over the flu, he got a cold and it wasn't long before I got it too. Yuck!! Gerry is feeling fine now, and Reed and I seem to be past the worst of the cold. Luckily Gerry and I took turns being sick so we were able to help take care of each other and of course, take care of Reed.

Reed provided me with a much needed ray of sunshine yesterday (when I was feeling worst). I had a basket of clean laundry sitting in our hall, and I noticed him pushing down the hall, so I watched. He pushed it toward the laundry room, then proceeded to put every piece of laundry, piece by piece, into the clothes washer! So cute!! And apparently today the laundry was done because he pulled it all out again and put it in the laundry basket! It's so fun to watch him figure out the routines and patterns of our life.

Sign of the times

About half a year ago, Gerry and I started trying to teach Reed some useful sign language. Reed now has a number of signs in his vocabulary. Many of his signs relate to eating: eat, more, want, water, all done. But some of his favorite things now have signs too: phone, up (to be picked up), brush teeth and bath. Reed's most recent addition has been daddy. He doesn't yet sign for mommy, but I'm not discouraged for a couple of reasons. One is that we make a big deal about seeing daddy come home and signing for daddy and just haven't found a way to make a big deal about signing mommy. The other is that Reed's very first sign, was the sign for milk, which we use as the sign for nursing. As far as I'm concerned, that's as good as signing mommy.

The funny part is, that most of Reed's signs need a little interpretation. For instance, some of you may already know the sign for daddy.

But Reed's sign for daddy looks much more like a scuba diver's above water okay signal.

If I hadn't seen him do a lot of these signs immediately after I'd done them, I wouldn't quite know what he was talking about. Gerry and I both agree that it's nice to have ways for him to communicate his needs, especially since most kids are able to sign before they can do much talking. The only down side is that teaching sign does seem to delay speaking for some kids (they can get all their needs met without talking) but once they start talking, their language skills don't seem to be stunted.

And now, a picture of Reed outside with one of his favorite toys (not the dump truck as you might imagine, but the golf ball in his hand).