Our second week of Baby Sign Language focused on snack time! Pinky is still in her taste testing stage, but it was great for Mommy & Daddy to learn the signs for apple, banana, cracker, water, juice and so on. This week’s class seemed to go by a lot faster. We started out with signing a song from Pick Me Up Activity which we’ll do at every session for consistency. Then we went around the room and talked about our baby signing breakthroughs! I was so excited for this…keep reading to hear about Pinky’s breakthrough! We also signed to a song about snacks foods; and then learned signs for vehicles like car, firetruck, plane and helicopter. Joann also showed us signs for the primary colors. Like I said I felt like this class flew by. It went by a little too fast since I can barley remember what we learned. It was a good session though. I’m hoping we sing this new song in class again…something about a hug, a smile, and a song…which I believe is from Hullabaloo, a local San Diego Band specializing in children’s music- I know! How cool is that!
Pinky’s Signing Breakthrough
We’ve been teaching Pinky the signs for milk, more, all done and dog since she was about three or four months. We don’t have dogs at home but there are ‘eight’ at grandma and grandpa’s house, yes you read right, eight dogs. Roll call: Bowser, Jazz, Roxy, Buddha, Little Foot, Deebo, Mittens and Spanky! Phew…that’s besides the point, but I did notice that in all of Pinky’s amazement of these little creatures she started signing for dog by slapping her thighs. At first it looked like she was just flapping her arms in excitement, but the more I encouraged it and the more I put the dogs in her view, the more she signed. It was so amazing and we were all so proud of her. I took some video, but I’ll have to upload it later after I update my computer. And because Pinky is so smart, she had two signing breakthroughs last week. We also noticed that she would sign for milk while she was breastfeeding. There were times when she sign before, but when we didn’t notice she’d start crying. Pinky was signing so discretely and it is so adorable. After I shared these breakthroughs with the class Joann mentioned that it was okay Pinky was doing the sign while doing the action because it is how babies learn. It means they are associating the sign with the action and that is great progress. It’s so exciting because I was beginning to worry that Pinky wasn’t getting it but, I was reminded that it takes about 3-4 months for babies to comprehend and it had been just about that long since we started teaching her. This was as much a breakthrough for Mommy and Daddy as it was for Pinky. Again, we cannot express how proud we are of our Baby Girl.
I love that me and Daddy are so into learning sign language. It will only benefit us as a family once Pinky can comprehend and associate the signs with the actions. We have always agreed that an open line of communication is what makes our marriage work. Sign language is another way for us to communicate with Pinky even before she can speak. I’m convinced that as we continue to teach Pinky how to communicate she will build a high level of self-esteem and a greater trust in us as her parents.
To read more of what pinky is up to visit our blog at http://thepinkyproject.com.