Monday, February 1, 2010

Baby Genius

I don't really do baby signs. William always did really well with his verbal skills so I found that, for the most part, by the time he was able to efficiently communicate he was already able to speak words. So we encouraged him to speak early on and still, at three-years-old, his strongest skill set falls into the verbal category.

With Lucy I don't know what will happen. Every child is different. I see proof of that every single day.

She's getting to that age when she's starting to whine rather than cry when she wants something. The change is slow and subtle yet oh so much more annoying. When your little newborn cries your heart aches and you stop whatever you're doing to comfort her. But when one of my children whines I just want to scream, "WHAT?!"

And this whining is never more present than during mealtimes. Do I hear a collective cry of agreement from the mothers of America? They're hungry. They're tired. They whine.

Enter signs. Like I said, I'm not big on the whole baby signing fad but I do find a few of them useful. I like to teach my children how to sign the words "more" and "all done." This helps me decipher the whines. Is she whining because she's still hungry or is she whining because she's full and she's ready for bath and bed? One can never be too sure.

Signs aren't foolproof but check out my little Lucy mastering her signs already at nine months. Did I say mastering? Alright so maybe it only happens when all the planets align and it's a full moon and the fourth Tuesday of the month. Whatever. She's still a genius in my book.

3 comments:

  1. Love it! My boys did well with signing but I didn't get the videos or anything and didn't teach them anymore signs than "more", "please", "all done", "milk" and both of them really loved the "airplane" sign so we did that too. It definitely helped communication and limited the amount whines uttered. Dominic especially loved to teach Paul the signs and now he is teaching Paul letters and numbers and types of trucks :)
    -Maria

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  2. You're right. She's totally genius. :)

    Signing really is valuable isn't it? And I agree with you - the "more" and "all dones" are most helpful. Although, the "please" really melts my heart too.

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  3. She's adorable, Jenny!

    I think I need to get on the whole sign language thing! I taught a few basic signs to my older daughter when she was a baby, but haven't done that yet with my 10-month-old. Perhaps it's about time...

    stephanie@metropolitanmama.net

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