More Please

Jackson's development in the past two months has just been staggering! I am proud to say that after months of mindless sign language, Jax has finally begun to respond to it. If you remember this post, where I was quite distraught over his constant yelling and grabbing on other children... my remedy was "nice touches". I started to show exactly how we touch our friends, by nicely touching their arms - not grabbing onto their clothing and screaming in their face. We also used this reference when it came to our cats..."you must give the kitties nice touches, Jackson" as opposed to pulling their fur. This was the first "sign" we developed. We would ask him , "Jax, how to you give nice touches?" and he would show us my padding his belly nicely. Then we started to ask, "what do we give our friends?" and he would respond with the same sign... nice touches. We no longer have a yelling, grabbing toddler :)

The signing has now extended to the sign for "milk". He actually signs this one (squeezing the utters of a cow) with both hands. Usually he will let me know when he is thirsty by tugging on my pants while I am standing near the frig. But now, he will make the sign when he wants his milk. And taking that a bit further... whenever I would pull his sippy cup out of the frig, I would ask him to "please sit down" on the kitchen floor to drink his milk. Now, I don't even have to ask him! He just plops himself right down when he sees me pull out this sippy cup. It is SO rewarding to see these developments take place and actually see it all "click" in my 14 month old.



He can now sign "more", which we practice a lot at mealtimes. His favorite book right now is Baby's First Words. Watch this video to see how he can recognize some of the photos we have studied. I am trying to get him to say "Choo Choo" in regards to the train. There are train tracks behind the neighbors across the street and it's so fun to watch his excitement and amazement while that train goes through. Now, when we pull his toy train out that makes noises, he starts motioning and babbling towards the window where we watch the train. How cool!!