Talking Hands...

Elijah is officially signing :) It's so funny to me, by your third baby you are waaay more laid back than you would have ever allowed yourself to be with your first child. Although Nathan talked early (sentences at 14 months i.e., Daddy go to wok /work/) so I really never had to contemplate about his speech and language abilities. Daniel on the other hand, was much slower in talking. But after talking with my pediatrician at his two year well 'baby' I was put as ease. See, Nathan did all the talking for him. Which is common in closely spaced siblings. So really why should Daniel bother to try to talk if Nathan has his back? Daniels language development was at or above his age, but it was just his speech that was not ''kicked in'' (language is the understanding of words and such, speech is *saying* the words--granted that's in the most simple definition of speech and language). Now at almost 4 Daniel has conquered speech with a vengeance. You would have never known his speech was delayed, because see he now makes it a goal each day to make up for all those days when he was a wee one and didn't use his daily quota of words. LOL And that brings us to Elijah. Elijah does have words. But he too, isn't talking to the extent Nathan was at this age (and no I'm not necessarily comparing him to Nathan). I visit a message board of babies born in Oct 2002 and there are many on that board that have expansive vocabularies, are stringing words together...heck some have even used the potty. LOL So I've been using some signs with Elijah here and there. I did the same thing with Daniel. Daniel never really took to the signing, he after all had Nathan at his whim to do his talking and requesting why should he bother to learn a sign? (Can you tell which of my children is laid back and easy going???) Anyway, Elijah has decided today that ''hey, I can do that, and it gets results'' so he's be signing ''up/hold me'' ''more'' ''drink'' ''yes'' and ''no'' (although he says the last two also). Yay