Guest Blogger Returns!

Ok, so you're a 2+ foot tall, 25+ pound little girl who's been watching our oh-so-interesting life for months on end, and you finally learn enough sign language to start expressing yourself. What would you say?

This is what Carmen says (all sign language, a few half-spoken words sometimes along with):

- Banana (usually, I want a ...)
- Fish (We have fish wallpaper, fish pictures, stuffed fish and plastic fish to play with in the water table. Not as many fish as camels, but then the sign for fish is easier to learn. And you can splash around the fish toys, which you can't do with camels). Whole Foods has a big fish tank, too.
- Doll
- Bear / Bunny (These signs look pretty similar. Sometimes the stuffed bunny gets called a Bear, but she doesn't seem to mind)
- Book. (We just went to the library's used book sale and bought something like 70 books. We're using this sign a lot)
- More (usually, more food...)
- Potty (sometimes, this is a news report of past activity. More often, and more exciting, it is becoming a forecast of things to come. About as reliable as the weather forecast, but allows better planning on the part of the parents)
- Bread
- Tired (usually in the context of yes I'm tired but no, no nap for me!)
- Rain
- Boat (One of our neighbors is an avid fisherman. Any baby who understands fish and boat is an OK baby by him)
- Car (usually, let's go for a ride in it and go somewhere and let me run around and make trouble)
- Shoe (usually a precursor to the above, so one of our favorite words)
- Sock
- Shirt
- Hat (Yep, we look darn cute in a hat)
- Bath (often an outside activity, with toy Boat and Fish involved)
- Wash Hands (usually used to mean water in general, but at least gets us in the right ballpark)
- Brush Hair
- Brush Teeth (don't know how clean they get, but a toothbrush is really fun to stick in your mouth)
- Horse (usually, I want to ride my rocking horse!)

We're even getting some sentances. Last weekend, she signed "Boat" and "Fish". Took me a while to figure out that she was talking about the toy boat and fish that live in the (normally dry) water table. When I took the cover off, she found the boat and fish, and then signed "water". Her water table was filled up soon after, and she had a great afternoon.

David's starting to sign some, too, but just enough to get his point across. "Banana" and "Hat" when he wants one, but otherwise he'll let the conversation thing go. He's more interested in figuring out how to get the toothpaste tube out of the box, and then back in (with the box closed and the little tab where it goes). Carmen is more excited about talking, and I feel like we have John Madden in our house doing commentary. "He's washing his hands! Now he's brushing teeth! And he just ate a banana! And put on a new shirt! Touchdown!"

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