Baby Sign Language

Well, I'm overdue for a post on Sasha's sign language development. I've mentioned it in previous posts, especially when she learned a new sign, but I figured I'd put together a post and try to compile her current vocabulary. She just turned 14 months old. She signed her first sign (more) at 6 months, and I've been signing to her since she was two months old.
First, I'll try to list her signs. Wish me luck; I know I'll be coming back to edit this part as I remember more of them, as she's got a good sign language vocabulary.

• Sister/Cassie - her favorite or most often used sign


• Dad -the way she does this is cute. She points at her forehead, looks like think, or even worse, sometimes it looks like an 'L' on her forehead, like loser!


• more - she bumps her fists together


• all done


• all gone - she only does this with one hand


• eat


• drink


• milk


• water
• cereal - when she's eating her cheerios


• potty - she does this sign a lot! When anyone goes potty, when the toilet flushes, when she's currently going potty. Hope that means she'll potty train easy, haha!


• bath - one of her new favorite signs. Sometimes she literally makes motions across her whole body like she's washing up. arms, legs, and all.


• bird - she surprised me with this sign one day. I showed it to her when she was looking at some geese outside. Then later that day she pointed at the tv and signed bird. Yep, there was a bird on televison!


• dog - another favorite sign. She loves doggies. I wish she could see more of them as they make her so happy. She barks when she does this sign now


• tree - she only signs this when I sign it first.


• light - She loves lights! She points out every light in our hallway and can say 'light' also.


• telephone - as much as she loves telephones, she doesn't do this sign often but I've seen her do it.


• bye bye - bye bye, but I think most every baby can do this. She opens and closes her hands at head level. Funny thing is, she waits until the person leaves before she'll say bye bye to them. By that time, they're long gone.


• shoes - This girl LOVES her shoes. If she doesn't have her shoes on, she'll ask for them to be put on, usually by bringing us her shoes and sticking out her feet. But she has on rare occasion signed shoe


• socks- Her newest sign! She signed this one today. I didn't even know she knew this sign.


• hat - She hardly ever does this sign, only did it to copy me when she did do it


• baby signing time -she knows this as a phrase/song and as her sign language video, but not the individual words. One day I sang her the Intro song to the Baby Signing Time video (it's one of those annoying songs that sticks in your head) and she started signing "baby signing time"! I was impressed.


• sleep - instead of signing this across her whole face, she just signs this over her lips and does a funny little raspberry. But she really means she's tired when she does this!


• I know she knows more, I'll update this when I think of them

Some of her signs look similar, and I have a hard time distinguishing them. 'Milk', 'light', 'all done', 'bye-bye' sort of look the same the way she does them some times. I'm trying to get her to hold her hand up high over her head for the sign for 'light' so I can tell the difference but right now she opens and closes her hand at head level for 'light' and 'milk' and 'bye bye'. 'All done', she NORMALLY does with both hands but sometimes she gets lazy with it, then it looks like 'milk', light, etc.

Her signs are not precise by any means. By that, I mean her version of the sign does not look like the textbook version. But she has meaning behind them. When she signs 'all-done', she really means 'all-done', and she usually does it the same every time. In that respect, it is a true form of communication.

Suspiciously absent from her list is 'mom'! Nope, she won't sign Mom. She has signs for 'dad' and 'sister' but not 'mom'. Bummer!