We’ve been teaching Tory a few signs with the help of the Baby Signing Time series, and its been fun to watch him learn to communicate with us. It’s also cut down on some of the frustration for him as he can tell us somewhat what he wants. Heavy on the “somewhat.” Eat, all done, mom, dad… and he loves to sign along with the Baby Signing Time theme song. Too bad he doesn’t know potty yet. The words I want to hear most from his lips are not “I love you, daddy” but “daddy, potty!” Some day, some day.
So today we were at Snow Basin ski resort for a snowboarding race, and during the awards festivities, I was standing with the boy in my arms when he made the sign for eat. Suddenly I hear the words, “Oh, is your child deaf?” Which I then had to explain, to a well meaning, and kind older woman, that no, in fact he wasn’t deaf, and that teaching your child to sign is something that is just done these days.
Being a parent to my first child, I often find myself wondering if I’m doing it right. Its things like this that make me feel like we’re not doing so bad. No, he cant quite walk yet, but at least I know when he wants a bananna.
4 Comments
I totally understand where you are coming from. I have triplet boys, who were born at 27 week, who developed a language of their own. If it weren’t for sign language we would have been in big trouble!
We are also huge Signing Time (and Baby Signing Time) fans! I really urge you to go to their site and check out the regular Signing Time series 1 and 2 (www.signingtime.com). My boys are now almost 3 and they know all of their upper and lowercase letters as well as their numbers 1-20. Sign Language is now offered in many high schools across the country as a foreign language.
I love you, Daddy will come soon enough!
Thanks for the suggestion on the regular Signing Time series. He loves the baby versions so much I’m sure he’ll want more.
This sounds great. Something I definitely want to do with Dahlia when she’s a bit older. :) Right now I’m all about the smiles and the fact that she LOOKS at things. :0
That last comment was from me btw… ;)
Carrie