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).