Matthew and Linus enjoyed a guy's night last night while I attended my book club. They went to the concert at the Garden and had a fun time. My book club started up again after a several month hiatus. It was fun to see the group again and meet two new people.
Linus wasn't sleepy at bed time, perhaps because he took a nap when he got home from the concert. We thought he was out for the night, but it was just a nap. I finally read him a bed time story from a book geared to six- or seven-year-olds. I read it three times and he started nodding off. I rocked him a bit and put him to bed and that finally did the trick. I never envisioned I'd be reading a bedtime story to a 4-month old. I pictured that happening when he was in his big boy bed at around 2 years old. Just another example of how he was destined to love books because he was born during National Library Week.
In the morning Linus and I attended a class called "Sign Language for Tots." He talked to his keys throughout much of the class. I've been teasing him that maybe he wanted to teach the class. The theory behind sign language for babies is that one can avoid a lot of frustration if your toddler can tell you what he wants. Apparently a child around 10 months old can start learning the signs for eat, milk, and more. I'm going to do some more research on this.
3 comments:
James and Jackie taught their oldest daughter Delaney some sign language because James' sister Beth is a speech and language something-or-other and learned it in college. It was a cute novelty but I'm not sure it cut down on any frustration. Whether she signed "milk" or said "mauk" or crawled over to the fridge and slapped it to indicate what she wanted, I think she got her point across. I guess at 10 months they're pretty limited though so maybe signing would help.
Shannon's daughter, Rose, learned some basic sign language. She can't yet talk, but LOVES to combine the sign for "more" and "milk." She speaks baby slang sign language, and I love watching her...
...and sharing her toys! She gave me her extra pirate happy meal toy (complete with a little crusty drool -- I think she learned from Linus) after I let her play with my light up pirate skull from Froot Loops.
My friend Rebecca's daughter, Jerzay, learned sign language, too. But one day I was out with little Jerzay and we ran into my friend, Laurel, who is deaf, and Laurel told us that the sign language most places teach babies is not ASL...deaf people can't understand it. It's modified. I sensed that was the case because when Jerzay signed "kitty," I knew it wasn't ASL for cat or kitty, since I know some ASL from my old job and from communicating with Laurel. Still, it is fun to see Jerzay sign, but she always signs "drink" and say "trink" at the same time.
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