Since Djai was born I have been communicating to him with sign language. It is said that babies don’t pick up on signs until at least six months of age, but what does it hurt for me to practice in the meantime, right? Plus, there is that thing that every parent has where we secretly think our children will walk, talk and solve complex mathematical equations three times earlier than the other babies. Don’t lie, you know you did it too. I did, even in making a conscious effort not to!
Yesterday all my hard work, persistence and patience rewarded me with Johnathan’s fingers meeting each other in stabbing motion to represent “more” after giving him a berry. I’ve seen nothing more incredible in my life than watching that light bulb switch on in his head when he makes a connection and learns something new. We have all kind-of thought we saw him do signs before, for “food” and for “more,” but this time it is very clear and fluent.
Today in his stroller he looked up at me and with his hands said “more.” I couldn’t help but laugh, as I had not been feeding him and realized he associates “more” with food. Hallie’s parents, Tricia and Erik have the right idea showing her “more” when they take a ball away and give it back. Our next area of focus will be “food,” “drink,” “play,” and of course “please” and “thank you” to accentuate and clarify the “more.”
How exciting! He’s talking!!!

This entry was posted Tuesday, July 12th, 2005 at 8:12 pm and is filed under Johnathan. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.