Milk
Since Callum was about 7 or 8 months old, we’ve been showing him this baby sign language DVD, which he really loves. The idea is that babies are physically able to make signs with their hands much earlier than they’re able to say words with their mouths. But we haven’t been pushing it. We aren’t that consistent about making the signs when we speak to Callum, in part because our hands are often full. Still, we show him the video pretty regularly, because he seems to really like the sign language lady and the little girl.
Anyway, Saturday morning, I took the boy with me to Peets Coffee. Our coffee maker is broken, and I was jonesing for the morning caffeine. I also hoped it’d be good people-watching for him. Got coffee for me, and milk for him. Somewhere in there, between sneaking a sip of java and helping him sip from his milk cup, I saw him do it. With his little right hand, Callum did the sign for “milk.” He showed zero recognition of the fact that he’d done something rather extraordinary and exciting, so maybe it was just a fluke (like the earlier first word false alarm) but the sign for milk is pretty distinctive. Will he repeat the feat? Only time will tell.
August 9th, 2006 at 9:00 am
Keep it up! We have signed to Addison from 6 months old and around 12-14 months he started to repeat the signs. Now at 17 months he will look out of the window and see a bird and turn to us doing the sign for bird whilst trying to say the word. He quite clearly understands the principal of comunication and enjoys the power it offers him. Thalia was signing at a much early age and already had at least a dozen clear words by 17 months. This shows just how lazy boys are…
August 15th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
That’s so cool!! I’ve been doing the sign for milk for several months - Adriana won’t do it back to us yet but if I think she might be hungry, I get her attention and say “Adriana, Milk?” while signing, and if she’s hungry she gets a really big smile on her face and starts to bounce. If she’s not she just looks away or acts disinterested.
Can’t wait til the day she does it herself! I also do the sign for food, I guess I need to pull the book out and memorize a few more. I’ve used signwithme.com to look up some of the signs, too.