Baby Signs

When Dominic was around one year old, we taught him a few Baby Signs. Baby signs are a rudimenatary form of sign language that babys can learn and use to communicate before they are ready to speak. We purchased a book, Baby Signs, (apt enough name) and read up on the whole subject. It was not too difficult to teach him several signs and long before Dominic could vocalize the words, he was able sign simple concepts like "eat", "more", and "all done." We could have taught him more as there are many other signs, but we were lazy...

The last couple of weeks we have been trying to teach Jocelyn these same signs (and hopefully more.) We've enlisted Dominic to help out and he has been modeling the signs for Joss (with varying amounts of enthusiasm.) For quite awhile Joss has been pointing at things that she wants, but if she is pointing to food, we have stopped giving it to her right away and have begun to ask her if she wants to 'eat' or is she wants 'more' if she has already been eating. For the first time this afternoon she made the 'eat' sign! This evening she was pointing to the baby puffs (a snack food) and I asked her if she wanted to eat. Then she made the sign! I was very happy and immediately gave her some puffs.

Joss's little index finger is pretty cute as its always pointing at something - usually something that is Dominic's like one of his more treasured trains or his sippy cup. As we began to teach her the more conventional signs for 'eat', Joss tried to teach us one that she made up. Sometimes as she was sitting in her high chair, we would take a moment to prepare her food for her (and take a bite of our own!) Just like her mother, she is not a very patient little girl and so she would want to be served right away. Sometimes she would point to the food. If that did not get her point across, she has taken to pointing at her high chair tray as if to say, "Put the food here now!"

Here are some more photos of Joss at her birthday party:

DominicsDad