The Three Little Pigs

My blog inspiration for today comes from breakfast this morning. I cooked Levi and myself two scrambled eggs each and a piece of toast ("with jelly on it, mama!") for breakfast and was feeding Audrey a jar of Oatmeal with pears. YUMMY!

When Levi was Audrey's age I started using sign language with him. "They" say that babies pick up on sign before they do vocal communication, thus making it easier for them to communicate without all of the grunts and screams. Levi, when he was younger, could do the sign for "more" at the dinner table instead of whining for more of whatever he wanted. He could also regularly sign "thank you" and "please."

So, now that Audrey is eating jarred foods I'm starting the sign language with her. This morning I would make the sign for "more" to Audrey and directly feed her a spoonful of the Oatmeal. Trying to help her make the association that after the word "more" I make a sign with my hands and then she instantly gets food.

Levi, was COMPLETELY FASCINATED with this. Since he's been speaking he never signs anymore and it's as if he had forgotten that he used to, but somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered that he used to know how. It's weird. I was watching him watching me sign to Audrey and I could just see the gears working in his brain. I could hear him thinking "hey, I think I remember that I used to do that!" After I would sign to Audrey, Levi would do it and then ask me if he had done it correctly. ("like this, mama?")

This then lead to a mini "homeschool session" into what sign language is, when we use it, and why. I explained to him the term "deaf" in words that he could understand. "A deaf person can not hear with their ears like you can, Levi, so they have to watch people 'talk' with their hands." He was fascinated.

This thrills me to no end. ASL has recently (in the last three years or so) become a fascination of mine and I hope to one day be fluent in it. Maybe now that I know Levi is interested I can start using him as my guinea for practice and we can both learn it at the same time.

Anyway, that reminded me of some old pictures I have of Audrey. These were probably taken two months ago when she first started eating jar foods. Here, she was eating pears. and loving them as you can tell!

again, sorry the pics are in wacky places. I really need to figure this thing out! HELP!