I always knew I wanted to try and do sign language with my kids.  As with many things, the difference between what I imagined while pregnant and what became my actual reality… yeah.  I just plain don’t spend big blocks of time every day doing signs with my kids.  I don’t have the fluency or ease to just add it into my everyday speaking.  And I just apparently didn’t have the mental energy or dedication.

But, still, we took the class together back when the kids were littler, and when we remember, we try to do the signs. Especially once they started trying to mimic a lot of sounds and were clearly picking up on the receptive language front, I tried to do it a bit more.  Still, not much.

And then, all of a sudden, Rebecca spontaneously started signing “more” when she wanted to go down the slide again.  It’s not that we’d never done the sign with her, but we truly hadn’t been doing it all that much.  But there she went.  Since then, she’s becoming a signing machine.  Among the words she’s picked up recently (at least that I can recognize): more, please, dog, duck, cat, light, daddy, and possibly fish.  She also has started waving and saying “hi” whenever I’m on the phone, and she likes to pat Daniel on the head and attempt to say “Daniel.”  (Everything she says is pretty much “da da” with slight differences in inflection.)

Daniel, for his part, sticks with the trusty “light.”  And he waves, which often looks like and/or turns into “light.”  What’s funny is when I’m giving them a snack, I’ll ask if he wants more and I’ll keep doing the sign. Rebecca, already with a mouthful, is frantically signing more and sometimes throws in a “please” for good measure.  Daniel just grins and shrieks, which clearly means “hell yes, I want more!  Why would I need to do that funny thing with my hands? You already know what I want!”  Smart kid.

If I could get my damn video camera to cooperate with my computer, I’d try to get some footage of her signing.  But in the meantime, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Yesterday we started our Sign & Sing class! It’s a 10-week series to help learn sign language with the kids. Not only do I think it’s a good thing to learn as far as language development and improved communication, but it’s also a fun outing for all of us to do together. Joining groups and taking classes is not usually M’s thing. I’m definitely more of the extrovert, more likely to seek out activities and things. But he likes the idea of sign language, and we agree that it’s not the kind of thing that would be very effective for me to go learn it on my own and then come back and show him. Plus, I’ve really been itching for something that all four of us can go out and do together on the weekends. We’re kind of homebodies, and also end up doing a lot of baby hand-offs on the weekend (i.e. he hangs out with them while I go to the store, etc). That works in some ways, but I wanted something that was fun and out of the house for all four of us.

The class was great! It’s not too early in the morning for Mr. Not-a-morning-person, starting at 11:45. Makes for a slightly tricky afternoon nap situation, but it’s alright. There were a total of six babies in the class. I was worried that we’d have the youngest ones, as the stated age range for the class is 8-24 months. Thankfully, they’re almost all around 8 months, with the oldest being 11 months! Whew. And, lucky for M, there’s even two other dads there! That was my other worry, but I think the fact that it’s a Saturday helped us. Anyways, most of the signs are done in the context of a song (as the name of the class might suggest), which seems to be fun for the kids and helps the adults remember the signs. There were toys to play with, and the big hit of the day, bubbles. At 45 minutes long, it was just enough to keep their interest, and end before they totally lost it.

Language is a funny thing. You think to yourself that it’ll be plenty just to learn maybe 3-5 new signs, that it would be hard enough to remember that many. But when I look back and remember all of the words we did, it was closer to 15-20! Hello, happy, here, mom, dad, bear, mountain, see, what, music, more, all done, silly, clown, ball, jumping, blocks, bubbles, high, low, sky, goodbye… many of them are obvious and intuitive, and the teacher had some good cues and associations to help the rest make sense. I think the trick now is to make signing a habit, something that I just do, without having to think to much about doing it on purpose. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyways, after the class, we decided to be bold and go get lunch (plus, it was 12:45 and we were hungry). We walked down to a casual burger joint, grabbed sandwiches, and had a nice time. Daniel got fussy, so we fed him, but otherwise it went pretty well. Especially given that it was rather past their normal nap time. I definitely enjoyed the family-of-four outing, and I think M did, too. I think it’s good for him to do things like this, because while I’m used to being out and about with the kids, he doesn’t do that as much. I think it helps him get a sense of what they’re (and we’re) capable of, and what their (our) limits are.

A good time was had by all, and this will be our Saturday morning until early June! Wow!

My kids have entered a whole new phase. On the one hand, they’re a million times more fun than they were back in the dark days of 6-12 weeks. They interact, they smile, they laugh. They play with toys, they play with us. They think daddy is pretty funny. They think the dog is nothing short of hilarious. Sometimes they even find me amusing. But since I’m doing a one-woman show for the majority of our days, I’m feeling a bit of pressure to keep the hits coming. And the down side of this phase is the fact that they now seem to get bored. Oh dear.

Play groups help. Seeing other babies and other adults helps to amuse them, especially in those tricky late-afternoon hours. But outings are troublesome, especially in relation to the nap schedule. Going out before the morning nap, well that’s just not going to happen. I’m still in my PJs. Maybe, when it gets warmer, we’ll manage a short walk with the dog, but that’s it. In between the morning and afternoon nap is when we frequently have invitations to go somewhere, but it’s not always such a good thing. By the time they’re up from their nap, fed, packed in the car, and ready to go… it doesn’t leave a lot of time for much “playing.” And then, when we inevitably make a hasty exit due to tired meltdowns, they fall asleep in the car. Just long enough that, when they get home and wake up (as soon as I get them in the house, usually), they have no interest in “finishing” their early afternoon nap. And thus, the rest of our day is shot to hell, because their naps are all messed up and they’re tired. No, at this particular moment in their young lives, the ideal time for an outing seems to be about 3PM. Post-afternoon-nap, they’re fairly wide awake, but also likely to be nearing boredom. We go out, we are amused, and if they fall asleep in the car around 4:30PM, no problem. Just enough of a catnap to get them all the way to bedtime.

But still, I can only crash my friends’ houses so often. We need another kid-centered activity. And so, I’ve signed us up for two classes! This is at the same maternity center where I took my two new mom classes back in the fall. I felt a little burned out on them at the time, but I’m ready to have a regular outing at a baby-safe location. They both start in a few weeks.

The first class we’re doing is sort of a developmentally-centered playgroup/class. Babies in the class are about 6-8 months old (at the start of class), and there are age-appropriate activities like songs and parachutes, as well as some discussion with the facilitator and other moms about development (gross motor, language, etc.). It’s an hour long, and best of all, it’s at 3PM! It’s at a center slightly farther from my house, but I couldn’t pass up the time. All of the other classes were around noon or 1PM, which is just too much messing with the nap for me. Can’t wait.

And the second class, drumroll, is going to be all four of us. Yes, that’s right, M is actually going to come to a baby class. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great dad, very involved, loves the kids more than anything. But let’s just say that joining groups is not really his thing. A few weeks ago, I took a single-session workshop with a friend of mine on Infant Signing. I knew I wanted to use sign language with my kids, but this gave some good suggestions for how to do it. My interest was piqued, and M thought it sounded cool, too. Since I have no interest in going to the class by myself and then having to pass along second-hand info, we found a Saturday class, and we’re all going. 10 weeks of sign language! It’s done with a lot of songs and games and things for the babies. Ours will probably be among the youngest in the class, but I’m not too concerned. It’s just as much for me and M to learn as anything else. But I hope we all like it, and I hope the kids take to it…

And now, I must run. Playgroup this afternoon! Thank goodness.