Sign for Milk

So quite a while back (funny to say that when referring to Logan's life) I started teaching him sign language - simple things like milk, eat and more. When I saw that I wasn't really getting anywhere, I put it on hold. Then I saw my friend Kathy's daughter sign for milk and eat when she was thirsty and hungry. She is 3.5 months older than Logan - so I thought if I just perservere, perhaps he'll get it. I've heard that children can communicate earlier (than talking) by telling you what they want with sign language. It eases the frustration of the child and parent more when they both can tell and understand the other.

So I started practicing milk, eat and more at each meal...there are times I would forget, but I tried. I would show him his milk in the bottle, say milk and do the sign - several times. After about another month or two....last week, he open and closed his hand (like waving hi except with his hand turned sideways). His milk was just out of reach and as soon as I gave it to him he took a big drink. (Sometimes when it is out of his reach and I give it to him he pushes it away, so it was cool to know that that is what he wanted.) The next day he was in his seat and as I was making his bottle, he did the sign. Yay! It looks like he actually has 'milk' down. He doesn't do it all the time, but as long as we're making progress, I will keep on going.

When we were at the library for storytime his friend Maddie did the sign for milk. Kathy said oh it looks like she wants her milk. The teacher was so excited for Maddie - as she has been teaching us a new sign each week in class and was glad to see that some of the babies were picking up on it (although Kathy had been working with Maddie prior to the class). I was commenting on how great it was that Maddie did the sign and the teacher said well did you just see what your son did? Apparently when Kathy said the word 'milk', he did the sign for it. She was amazed at this as well - since he has voice recognition to the sign. I too was amazed as I hadn't seen that part of it, nor knew that the voice recognition to the word was a big step. Yay for Logan!!

Now I need to learn some other signs and get to work on those. Lately we have been working on (still eat and more), ball, book and water. It will be really cool if he does pick up on it.