More, Please!

We introduced some sign language with Jude when he was somewhere between 6-9 months old and continue to use it with him on a daily basis. In most cases, he can speak the word but continues to sign at the same time. From the get-go, he adapted some of the signs to make them own, most notably the sign for "please." The standard ASL for "please" is to use an open palm touching the chest and moving in a circular motion like this:

From the first time we introduced this sign, Jude has signed this by putting both hands on his chest/belly and moving his trunk from side-to-side, often quite excitedly. Here's an example where he was begging for some additional sour cream on his plate (and he uses the standard sign for "more");



He certainly gets his point across with his modified sign and I guess that's the whole point of introducing sign anyways. But it's funny how kids make things their own!

Please, thank you, and other words

What a difference a year makes! When 2011 started, Jonah was working on sitting up on his own on a regular basis. As we roll into 2012, he walks, talks, and knows how to unlock the dishwasher and open the door. If only he could reach to put the dishes away!

We already knew Jonah could recognize words and was saying some words (Michelle recently wrote on his growing understanding of colors), but in the past few weeks, he has really started to use words and to better understand the meaning behind them. He still has some of the "mine" and "no" in him, but we are encouraging him to use his words to better communicate what he wants, and to ask when he wants something instead of just saying "mine!"

With this in mind, he is learning to say please with things. He is especially cute because he signs with it when he says it, but sometimes using both hands (which is closer to "bath" in sign language). We used to have to say "More what?" or "Up what?" to squeeze the "pleash (please)" out of him, but he is starting to put the words together on his own with greater frequency. 

His requests themselves are becoming a little more accurate, too (except when it comes to food - he still thinks we are fishing for a "please" when we ask him what he would like "more" of...). He asks to "read please" or to turn a light or toy "on please" or to "open please" or "mik (milk) please." The request for turning a toy on is actually pretty rare, because one of the first things he does with any toy seems to be to figure out how to turn it on and off. He has a new toy where a knob sticks a little, though, so he has some trouble with it.

Even more fun, especially during Christmas-time, was that he started to learn "thank you." It was just something where one of us said "Can you say thank you, Jonah?" and he shocked us by actually doing it! With this new found word, he was able to personally thank everyone for his Christmas gifts. Sometimes he even surprises us by using it on his own without prompting when a request has been filled for "more" or "up." Sure, it comes out more like "dangkyu," but its meaning is certainly clear.

A grateful little guy

On top of the polite words, Jonah is also starting try some larger words. Usually this is just repeating us, but it is so cute to see him working on words like "alligator" (as part of an Eric Carle animal flash card set or the Nuchi animal train set his Auntie Julie got him for Christmas).

One of our new favorites, though, is a simple word: "yeah." We used to ask what book he wants to read and go through a stack. He would say no, no, no... until we got to the one he wanted, and he would just grab it. Now he says, "yeah!" We can also ask him things like "do you need a diaper change?" or "do you want some milk?" and he will say "yeah."

One of my favorite uses so far was tonight. After reading a bedtime story, I told him "I had a really good day with you today, Jonah. Did you have a good day?"

Snuggling his head into my shoulder, he said "Yeah!"

Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?

It's been SO cool to hear Jonah begin to talk. He struggles at times to get his ideas across, but he points to help illustrate his point (or pushes on your legs until you move to do what he wants) and he chatters quite a bit. Right now, he pretty consistently says Dadda, Mamma, shoe, sock, ball, book, light ("lie"), eye, head, bye-bye, hi (hello), more, chair, spoon, car, choo-choo (for train), cheese, bath, bird, moon, sun, up, off, on, outside, uh-oh, hat, elbow, button, and more that I am sure I'm forgetting right now. 

At times, he gets stuck on a word for a couple of days; right now he is fascinated with the word button. Everything he sees that looks like it might be something you can push is a button (e.g. circles drawn on his sippy cup), and he notices all of the buttons on toys and even in picture books (such as the rocket ship one he received at cousin Grant's birthday party).  It is so clear and sounds so adult at times that it is just striking.  It hadn't occurred to me until last night that he might not be aware of another meaning of button, as a fastener.  We were sitting at the dinner table and he was going on about buttons, so I was able to capture this cute video:

We still use some sign language, and that's been an interesting adventure as well.  He has started using the sign for bath to mean both bath and please, so you have to use context to figure out what he might be talking about.  Usually, that's not a problem in the case of these two words.  At this point, I think I need to continue to build my own sign vocabulary some more to help him build his. It's a matter of finding the time and the right teaching opportunities.

We've also had our first instance of Jonah using a word incorrectly. He likes the word elbow and will say it again and again at times. If you ask him where his elbow is, he always grabs his wrist. I have a feeling we helped create this confusion, as we likely held his wrist while we used our other hand to point to or touch his elbow. The poor little guy didn't recognize that the point was in touching his elbow and not his wrist, so now he thinks that his wrist is his elbow! We're trying to correct that by showing him our own elbows and touching his without having to touch his wrist, but we have yet to make inroads.  Hopefully we can get some video of this too at some point in the near future.

He's starting to be able to match animal sounds with animals, though he's not too great at vocalizing the sounds himself.  Ask him what a lion says and he has that one down.  He can definitely say "meow," and "quack" (or a variation thereof) comes out at times.

He clearly understands much more than he communicates.  We can give him instructions involving multiple steps and he does pretty well in following them (e.g. go get the book and bring it to mommy, put the car in the back of the dump truck and push it around), and he knows and gets excited by certain phrases, such as, let's put on our coats so we can go outside, or let's wash our hands and get ready for dinner.

I wonder what he will learn and speak next?  He loves to look at books (current favorites are The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which we sometimes read up to 10 times a day, Raffi's The Wheels on the Bus, and the My First Superman Book) so who knows which words he'll pick up next.  I continue to be amazed at all he has learned in such a short time!

Sign o' the (bath) times

We've tried to use sign language with Jonah in the hopes that he will be able to communicate with us more easily before he can talk. We use the signs for eat, drink, more, milk/nurse, and sleep among some others. The first one he picked up and started to do though, was bath.

Jonah loves his bath time! It was one of the first words that he seemed to recognize, and he would always perk up when he heard it. On the night I captured this (about a month ago - yes, I'm a bit behind in posting), we were outside talking with the neighbors when it seemed to be time to go in, so I asked if he was ready for bath. As soon as he heard it, he started doing the sign for it. When we got back inside, I was hoping he would do it again so I could capture it. I think he got tired of me asking at the end and just decided to walk out of the room.



He also does the signs for outside (kind of), eat (though he puts his hand to his nose instead of his mouth), and more (but we never really know what he wants more of, because sometimes we try to give him more and he refuses...).