Everywhere Signs

A good and wise friend clued me into teaching Delaney sign language to make it easier for us to communicate. I had seen several mothers at the YMCA uses sign language with their children and was always amazed at the ease which with both sides got their point across. Mother, signing -"Logan, come out of the pool right now." Child, also signing - "No. No. No. ". I also knew it required a lot of patience and consistency to make any headway. I am not the most consistent of people but I do love a challenge and I wanted to be able to better communicate with Delaney, as opposed to her whining and pointing and me lamely trying to supply the right answer. I must confess, I also envisioned us discussing the weather and and perhaps the subtle nuances of Big Red Barn in sign language while other mothers looked on in wonder at my gifted prodigy.

So I bought the book and the video, because you can never get all of your information in just one form of media. I watched the specialist, Dr. Joseph Garcia, who I admit turned me off a bit at first because he's a dead ringer for Heraldo Rivera, take me through 30 minutes of why signing was the greatest thing you could ever do for your child and then 5 minutes of showing me actual signs. Lots of hippie-looking moms signed voraciously throughout the video with their young, sometimes very young children and they all happily passed the salt and looked at the airplane with an ease of communication that hooked me right in.

I began signing the simple words first like they advise you to. At this point Deleny is about 11 months old. I made the signs for "milk" and "more" first and waited and watched for any sort of flickering hand movement to tell me she is getting it. When she made her first sign, which was "more", I was on the phone with my father and nearly deafened him. "She signed! She signed for more! Did you see that?" Which of course he didn't because we were speaking on the phone. I poured the entire box of cheerios on her tray, signing more, more, more, while I was doing so. She may have thought I was crazy, but she did look quite pleased with herself. Of course that could have been because of the the amount of cheerios I had suddenly dumped on her.

After that we learned a few more signs - milk, eat, ouch. It got a bit tricky here because a lot of these signs are similar. Take more and ouch for example. Very similar signs, so if you have no context you might think she is in agony, rather than simply wanting another cookie. I chose to think she was being poetic and was telling me she was hurting for more.

At 15 months she has turned a signing corner and a new problem is arising. She rapidly picks up signs now after being shown the sign only a few times. The problem is I don't know enough signs. The "help" sign for instance. Help was incredibly hard for us. We forgo the American Sign Language standard for this word and use a Dr. Joseph Garcia substitute which he says is easier for young hands to produce. You tap your hands to your chest a few times and that's it. So simple. It took an unbelievably long time for Delaney to get it, but I kept at it, thinking if I could just get her to ask for help our problems would be solved. And one day she does it! Tap Tap Tap on her chest when her toy box is closed. I rush over tap my own chest, yell Help! Help! And open the box. We are communicating!

Fast forward two weeks later and the child is running around my house beating her chest like King Kong at every obstacle in her path. Is it the sippy cup? Does she want the book? Is her diaper wet? I don't know! Help! Help! Help! In the grocery store, the YMCA, the library, there she is beating her chest with me shoving objects at her, trying to solve the mystery. I don't know the signs for "wait" or "patience" or "slow down". But is it better than whining and pointing? Definitely.