Friday, November 9, 2007

Auntie Em, Auntie Em!

No giant obelisks yet, but we're getting close. He snagged a toy today and put it in his mouth, but I kind of think I might have helped him. You know, subconciously. Every day, he's a little different. He is opening and closing his fingers more now; he twiddles them like he's signing fluently, but I don't think it's ASL he's signing.

Speaking of signing, we've started signing to him. What we've read says that four to seven months is the best time to introduce signs, so of course, we've started at three months because we're first-time parents and that's what we do. He probably won't start signing back until 9 or 10 months, but we're building a foundation here. I bought a baby signing book that I thought was a relatively good balance of blah-blah theory and picture dictionary; some were all one, and some were all the other. But it turns out I haven't read any of the theory, and the picture dictionary is a pain in the ass because it's broken down by category. There's a section on bath words, and one on food words, and one on play words, and so on. That sounds great, but it since it's not alphabetized over all, when you want to tell him you're going to go visit Aunt SWSIL, it makes it hard to find the sign for "Aunt" on the fly.

Heh. Aunt on the fly. I made a bug joke. Except that my time in Boston means that I'm just as likely to say "Ahnt" or "Ahntie" as I am "Ant," which pretty much guarantees Thumper will be a completely confused New-Southern-Englander by accent. He won't know his pralines from his prawns. Oh well. It'll make him seem more worldly that way.

2 comments:

Twisted Branches said...

Go Thumper! Your bug joke made me giggle. You're silly IR.

Anonymous said...

HA! Love it. Thumper can hang with our kids, as we also have a strange mixture of lifelong Northeast dialect with a 1.5 year Texas immersion. It wouldn't be unusual to hear me say "I'm so thirsty. Let's get a drink from the bubbler (pronounced bubbla) y'all". I'm often told how I have NO accent - which means I escaped the Boston/Rhode Island "pahk the cah" but I also don't have a Texas drawl.

That's cool by me.

As for signing, yes, I heard that's very helpful. I never had the time or energy to do it (one of the many, many, MANY aspects of involved and progressive parenting that my latchkey children missed out on) but I have friends that swear by it.

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