The Little Communicator

Well, it's nearly 3 a.m. and since I've been up with Baby E for what's turning into half the night, I thought I'd write a post to record some of her 11-month cuteness.

E has been awake for quite some time, and I haven't been asleep yet. DH and I both tried to get her to calm down with no success. I did spend some time in bed, but since my back is keeping me awake anyway I figured I may as well be up with the baby.

Between the fireworks and other things messing up her sleep schedule and her not feeling well, she's having a hard time sleeping tonight. She napped only briefly today, so I'm sure she's overtired, but she is coughing, having a hard time breathing through her stuffy nose, and seems to be in pain--I think she's cutting a couple more teeth.

She was fussing even while dozing off and while nursing, so I gave her some Ibuprofen and let her rub my elbows for a while. For some reason, elbows are her chosen comfort object. Mine are preferable, but anyone's elbows will do if mine aren't available.

After she finally calmed down we both had a middle-of-the-night snack. Now she's wide awake and quite cheerful.

Baby E is getting so proficient at communication. One of the cutest things is her name for her sisters--she calls them both doll. She'll tilt her head to one side, smile into their faces, and coo, "Hi, doll!" Her version of doll, of course, sounds more like dawh, but we know what she means.

After she stopped crying tonight (which had been going on for an hour or two, off and (mostly) on, she started smiling and talking.

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First she asked for Daddy. But since he was asleep (and sick) and I wasn't about to wake him up for her to play with, she moved on to something else.

She asked for food with her newly-aquired approximation of the eat sign--pointing to her mouth with one finger. If that doesn't get the message across she exaggeratedly catches my eye, sticks her finger in her mouth, takes it out, and starts making wide-mouthed chewing motions. All this, of course, is generally accompanied by a broad grin.

She was very excited when her request bore results. After eating some banana/plum/grape mixture, she asked for more.

This was somewhat of a breakthrough, because for the first time she actually touched two fingertips together rather than touching her left pointer to her right palm as she usually does. I was excited to see her using the fingers of both hands together, and surprised at her having the fine motor coordination to touch the tips of her index fingers together so well.

The actual sign involves touching the tips of both hands together, but she does it with just her index fingers instead of a whole-hand motion. I would think that would be more complicated, but that's how she's doing it. It certainly works to get the idea across.

After she'd had some food, she started trying to communicate something else. She waved the next spoonful away and said, "dn."

I asked, "All done?" and she grinned and made the all done sign, saying "ah dn." Then she touched her mouth with one finger again. So I offered the food. She politely took a bite, then touched her two fists together and waved her open palms in the air. Just to make sure I got the idea, she put both hands over her mouth. No more food.

I wasn't understanding what she was trying to say, so she tried every motion and sound she could think of. When she patted the high chair tray, it reminded me of the way she's been patting the front of the potty when she uses it. So I asked, "Potty?" and made the potty sign--shaking a fisted "t." She grinned and looked toward the potty, so I took off her diaper and sat her down.

She was happy enough to get her diaper off for a while, but she didn't want to use the potty.

She tried again, saying "dn" and laying a finger on her mouth. Suddenly it dawned on me what she was trying to say. Drink. It was her first time using both the word and the sign. I got her a sippy cup of water and said, "Drink?" and she triumphantly replied, "dik!"

She happily sat on the potty drinking her water and saying "dik" for a while. Then she set the cup on the floor and said "dik. doh." She picked the cup up and said, "uh," then put it down and said "dow". She did that a few times.

"Up, down, up, down." I repeated the words with her. We'd been working on the words up, down, in and out over the last few days, but this was the first time she'd used them in a different context than our games. I hadn't been sure whether she understood what they meant or was just parroting sounds.

"Dik doh" she said again, and I replied, "The drink is down."

It would be hard to say which of us was more pleased.

Then she saw the girls' magnetic Disney Princess paper dolls on the little table and crawled over to grab one.

"Oh, you found a doll," I said. She said, "dawh" and kept repeating "dawh" among her jabbering as she played.

Then she said, "Dawh. Deh doo." (Doll. Thank you.) A few minutes later she laid the doll flat on the floor and said, "Dawh. Dawh dow." Then she picked it up and said "Dawh uh."

She was applying the up and down concepts to everything. How fun. It was also the first time she had said "thank you" in a context other than when someone had just handed her something. I'm not sure if she was playing with the doll and saying thank you to it, or if she was saying thank you to me for letting her play with the doll, but it was cute.

I put her diaper on and carried her upstairs with me, and let her alternate between sitting in my lap and playing in the playpen next to me while I typed most of this blog entry.

When she started fussing and trying to communicate something again, though, this time I couldn't figure out what it was. She emphatically didn't want anything I offered. No milk, no bed, no cuddling, no toys.

Finally I decided she must just be tired and took her back to bed, under her strong protest. She threw herself forward so hard that she made us both see stars when her head made contact with my chin, and screamed in anger. She eventually settled down restlessly when I rocked her--but only if she was scraping at my elbow with her sharp little fingernails.

Close to 4 a.m. she went back to sleep, so I'm going to attempt to do so as well.

I'm so excited at all the words--both signing and verbal--she is using. She uses so many now that I've lost count, and seems to add several new ones each day. The combination of signs and speech really seem to help us both understand each other better. It makes life so much easier when I can figure out what she wants.

One of my friends who used baby signs with her kids told me that it was really helpful when her baby would wake up in the middle of the night. My friend would respond to her child's cries only to have the baby sign "book" to her. Mommy would say and sign, "No. Sleep." Knowing that the baby didn't really need anything, and just wanted to get up and play, allowed her to put the child quickly back to sleep.

I'm loving the growing ability Baby E and I have to communicate with each other.

Oh, BTW, this is for KLee again, or any other teacher who is interested: I found a fascinating article on sign language use in a normal classroom setting.

Here's a quote from the article: Whaley said the idea for the program came from watching the occasional conflicts in the classroom. "When toddlers have a conflict, they often will push each other to communicate their displeasure. We wondered what would happen if we could give them another physical way to express their anger. Well, the sign for 'stop' is very physical -- one hand slamming into the other -- so we thought that might work."

I like that idea a lot . . . I might try that with my 4- and 5-year olds.

I ran a quick search engine query for "sign language classroom" and one of the first results that popped up was this article, Using Sign Language in the Classroom by Rick Morris, Creator of New Management. It starts, "Sign Language is one of the five things I would never teach without." I haven't read it thoroughly yet (I will tomorrow), but it looks interesting from a quick skim.