Signing Times

We started teaching you sign language early on to see if it would help you communicate better with us. It was amazing to me how quickly you picked it up. Your first sign that I can remember clearly was “airplane”. We’d take you outside and you would hear the airplane, but it was hard for you to spot them at first. When Dad would show you the airplane sign, he would also make the noise “Sshhh”, so soon thereafter you were making the sign while saying “Sshhh” when you would spot an airplane in the sky.

Another one of your first signs was “Dog” (the “dog” sign is patting your thigh and sometimes snapping after you pat.) We would see dogs in the neighborhood or at friends’ homes and you loved them! One day I noticed that you saw a dog and started patting your belly and saying “Daw”. It was so cute! No matter how much we tried to get you to pat your thigh, you always patted your belly instead. Soon thereafter, you were so good at saying “Daw” (for dog) that you stopped signing it altogether.

Another sign you learned was “Bird” but it took you several weeks to get that one down since you didn’t quite have your pinchers working yet! Around age 1, you also learned “milk”, “eat”, “more”, “all done”, “fish”, and “banana”.

You learned “banana” almost instantaneously when we were in the grocery store one evening. Of course, bananas were one of your favorite foods. So I stopped in the produce section and picked up some bananas while showing you the “banana” sign. Right then and there you started doing the sign back to me! I was so impressed with your signing skills.

Around 14 months, I noticed that you started putting 2 signs together. You would sign “more banana”, “eat milk”, or “eat banana”. Very impressive.