Signed POTTY!

Today when Sasha (10 months old) woke up, she seemed really crabby. She was crying and seemed to be making a strange gesture with her hand, sort of like waving but more deliberate. I figured she was hungry so I started to feed her. Halfway through the feeding she stopped eating and started crying. She did the strange hand gesture again. Then she started grunting, turning red and started pooping. I said to her "Oooh Sasha are you going potty?" and she started making the gesture again very deliberately at me. Then it hit me. She was signing POTTY! (sign looks like you're shaking your hand with it positioned in the 'letter t' position, see link for sign video). Holy cow! I totally didn't expect her to ever sign that to me until she was like 2 or 3 years old. She didn't put her hand in the letter T position but it was definitely her version of potty.

I read a baby sign language book by Dr. Garcia and it suggested to do the potty sign with your baby even though you don't expect them to understand for a while because it would help with potty training later. So whenever I saw her grunting or obviously going potty I would sign potty at her. Also whenever I went potty, I usually have to take her into the bathroom with me and sit her down on the floor next to me. I know, no privacy for me but it's the only way I can go and still keep an eye on her. I always sign POTTY to her whenever I am going too. So she's seen the sign. I just didn't realize that she actually understood what it meant.

So this evening after she signed to me, I took her out to dh and told him what happened. I asked her to show her daddy how to sign POTTY and she did it for him. So she definitely meant to sign potty! Yay!

This makes me happy as I haven't seen a sign out of her in at least a month, and I've been very good about signing to her :)