sign language

Well, as you all know, we're teaching Hannah sign language. I cannot stress enough how amazing it is to see her sign words and know their meaning. It amazes me.

She knows a lot of them, but here are the ones I can remember: bath, milk, more, ball, please, all done, want, cheese, dog, cat, hot, and water.

I'm amazed at how much she's learned in just a short year. And it doesn't seem to be affecting her speech, either. I got (and still get) lots of warnings to "calm down" with the signing because she'll "never learn to talk" if she can get what she wants with a sign but so far that's not the case at all. In this video you can see her sign "all done" and "water" and if you listen closely she says the words too.



I'm so glad she's signing "all done". It's a pain in the ass to have to pick up her food that she throws down when she's done. And since she's been signing "all done" it has gotten better, but she still does it (as you saw in the video). It's frustrating, but a work in progress and she is improving. That's all I can ask. She knows the context of words as well. For instance, if I ask if she's thirsty she will sign "water" and go find her sippy cup. If I ask if she wants to nurse she will sign milk and lay down in my lap so we can get to business. If she sees steam she signs "hot". She's like a sponge with information and she soaks everything up.

The next signs we're working on are "help" and "thank you".

New words: sippy, poop, caca, hot, off, and please. Her favorite word remains "daddy", however. She knows the sound of Nate's truck coming up the driveway and starts yelling for him before he's even in the house. He says he can hear her as soon as he opens his door. Every cat is called "Oz", no matter what they look like. I suspect it will be this way for a while, as some other kids will call all animals a dog until they learn otherwise. She knows how to say Willow but only if we tell her, "No, that's not Oz. That's Willow!" and then she'll repeat her name. She loves to carry around their food dishes. In an effort to not say "no" so much to her I started saying, "That's the kitty food, not for Hannah. It's caca" and when she wants to stick her hands in the toilet I say it's caca and not to play in. Well now she will call things "caca" if she's not allowed to play with them. Not only are the cat's food dishes and the toilet "caca", the remote, DVD stand and computer stand are all "caca" as well.

Yesterday she walked over to the cat's dishes and I said, "Hannah Marie..." and she looked up at me and said, "No no no, caca!"

Brilliant move, mom.