Over the weekend, we noticed John Patrick had learned the sign for "more." Our nanny, Carley, taught him to touch the fingers on both of his hands together, in front of his chest, if he wants more of something. I had heard it was possible to teach toddlers sign language, but I was skeptical until I saw it firsthand with him.
Take tonight, for example. Jude and I were in the kitchen with John Patrick, who was in his high chair, eating dinner. When he finished the strawberries on his tray, he looked up, grunted, and made the "more" sign with his hands. When we asked him, "do you want more strawberries," he made the sign again. He does that with foods he loves to eat, like strawberries.
Yesterday, our other nanny, Laura, told Jude that she read one of John Patrick's favorite books to him five times in a row. Every time she would finish, he would look up at her and make the "more" sign with his hands. We had told her to watch for it and sure enough, he made the sign for her, too. It's crazy but pretty cool, because we feel like at last, he can actually communicate with us.
Carley is working on teaching him to sign "please," so we'll see how that goes. Um, in the photo above, he's definitely not signing or saying "please." Rather, he's making the "get your hands off my goldfish crackers" face.
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