ASL, toddlers, and food

By the by, if anyone has any idea of an ASL sign for kiwi or yogurt, we would love to know it, as we have had no luck finding one in any of our real-life or online dictionaries. Otter is beginning to pick up food signs very quickly, and asks for both the sign and the word for anything he eats.

Later, he'll then use the sign for what he wants to eat next. So far this works pretty well for him, as we are so thrilled by his signing that we tend to rush to give him whatever he asks for so as to reinforce the signing. Thus, last week, even after he'd had lots of veggies and grains and half a banana, when he signed 'apple' I immediately chopped up an apple for him. He did eat all of it, so he was hungry still. But we are trying to set limits, to avoid become short-order cooks--or short-order sous-chefs, really, as most of what he eats isn't cooked.

So far, we have found and been using signs for:
some veggies--carrot, radish, tomato, celery
many fruits--peach, grapes, apple, pineapple, pear, berry, orange, banana
other foods--oatmeal, cereal, rice, crackers, cheese, water

Last night, while we were all eating macaroni and cheese and Otter was also eating apple, he kept making the signs for grapes and for popsicle (as we give him those Edy fruit pops once in a while). And we would say: no Otter, not tonight. Tonight we have no grapes (or popsicles); tonight we are eating macaroni and cheese and apple.

And he would smile, and wait a moment, and make the sign again, then raise his eyebrows and look as hopeful and expectant as it is possible for a small child to look.

If they could send in small toddlers to negotiate international treaties, the opposing side would be worn down in days. Toddlers do not get discouraged and resigned. Of course, they'd need to be negotiating for grapes or peaches or something else highly desirable to toddlers, and I doubt many countries have a need for such treaties.

Fortunately, it is possible to distract them (sometimes) with play and the eleventieth reading of Chicka Chicka ABC (and don't tell me eleventieth isn't a word until you've read and read and read to a toddler).

Mini-Otter Update (MOU): It runs in the family

This morning, between the two of us, G and I read Chicka Chicka ABC to Otter at least seven to ten times. This would have been an even higher number except that I turned on the Wiggles show to distract Otter while I hid the book under a sofa cushion. (The first hiding attempt failed when Otter glimpsed his father sneaking the book out of the living room and wailed until it was returned and reread three more times.)

This hiding place, is, of course, inherited from my mother, who used to hide my Richard Scarry book--one of those big over-a-foot-tall books-- under the sofa cushions. At nine months old, (or so the story goes) I would drag the book out, find my mother, and shove it into her legs, grunting "Uhnnn! Uhnnn! UHNNN!" to indicate that she needed to read it to me yet again.

I do believe there is karma, and mine is catching up with me. Or perhaps it's time to give in and drag my Richard Scarry books out of my parents' attic for Otter.

Otter update: No and Oh nooooo

I know some of you are checking in for Otter updates, more than for my musings on parenthood, so I thought I'd add periodic quickie updates on Otter's actual activities.

Yesterday he was home with me for the Columbus holiday, and ---setting aside my objection in principle to the day as a holiday, and my hypocritical secondary objection that if it's going to be a holiday, G should get it off--- Otter and I had a lovely day together.

I got much housework done when he was playing intently on his own, and at one point I looked from the kitchen into the living room (which we use as one big playpen) and he'd pulled out every oversize board book in the basket near the fenced in TV. He was sitting surrounded by piles of books and had a Sandra Boynton touch and feel book open to the last page, where there are two little birds under eggshell-shaped flaps. The text asks if you want to go back to the beginning (the fuzzy fuzzy guy) and start the book over, and one little bird has a bubble that reads "yes" and one has a bubble that reads "no". (Grammy Pat may well remember reading this book with Otter.)

So Otter was pulling back the flaps over the birds, and saying "no" and then closing the flaps, and then opening them and saying "no" again to himself, over and over.

I know we're bibliophilic parents who own more board books than most libraries (and that's NOT an exaggeration), but at moments like this one, I feel pretty good about that. With board books, he can browse books all by himself and grab and pull at the ones we read together, and they don't tear or get damaged.

Later that afternoon, he decided he wanted me to read "Chicka Chicka ABC" to him over and over and over again. This book is the board book much abridged version of the alphabet book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and I read it with the tune from the Scholastic DVD of the full story. This board book version ends with all the letters falling out of the coconut tree (halfway through the real story), and the last line goes: "the whole alphabet on top of the--Oh noooooo! Chicka Chicka... Boom! Boom!" as all the letters fall out of the tree. Of course, saying "Oh nooooo!", I would clap my hands to my cheeks.

When we got home last night from our signing children potluck, Otter went straight to Chicka Chicka and shoved it into my hands, saying "Oh nooooo!" and clapping a hand to his face.

If we get the kids we deserve, in some other lifetime either G or I or both must've done something pretty good for the world.

Who can tell?

We've withdrawn Otter almost completely from the far-away daycare with the indoor slide. He goes tomorrow, and possibly not again after that. I am fighting my sadness on this one.

One of the artifacts of his short stay there is the photo they took at the daycare's children and families potluck a few weeks ago. They took the pic to put on their board of pics of all the kids' families. Understandably, with him leaving, they don't so much need the picture, so they put it in his cubby for us to take home.

While this reflects not at all on the daycare, this photo is quite possibly the least attractive picture of Otter I have ever seen, and it's not so great of me either. (G looks great as usual--but that's another discussion.) But Otter--gosh, he looks like his lips are swollen and reddish and honestly, he looks like a kid you'd be saying "What a great color that jacket is on him". (Not that those comments couldn't be true of a stunningly gorgeous kid, as well.)

Looking at Otter in this picture, I am struck with self-doubt. I think of him as quite obviously one of the world's most charming-looking children.

His grandparents certainly seem to agree; his paternal grandfather adds to that conviction a perpetual belief that Otter's every new skill and movement is a sign that he is, clearly, some sort of child prodigy. It's truly kind of cute to see someone who is even more gonzo for your child than you are; it gives you the illusion that you yourself are, relatively speaking, aware of your child's limitations and lack of perpetual "prodigyness." That's not to rule out that Otter might be especially good at something eventually; it's just clear to me and G that standing up, smiling, and recognizing people, etc, are not skills unique to our child. (Here I am gently exaggerating his grampy's fond hopes, but not all that much.)

But to return to the photo. Looking at this photo, I think to myself: every parent thinks their kid is amazing, right, including thinking the kid is attractive. I've seen posts online from parents saying things like "my sister said my kid 'isn't so unattractive now'; but look at these pics: my kid was always lovely."

Uhmm, no. Some babies and toddlers look a bit disproportionate. Truly, I sometimes see babies in the market and think: "whoa! Thank goodness kids grown into their heads and their features become more proportionate." And baldness isn't a great look for all kids. They don't all have Sinead O'Connor's well-shaped head.

So, logically, if THOSE parents don't think that their children are still growing into displaying their inner charm in a more outward way, what's to say that Otter's appearance isn't just as overrated by me? Yes, people in the market smile at him, but he's a smiley flirty little dude.

And he's a towheaded blue-eyed white boy dressed in clean and quite nice clothes (thanks to his cousins' hand-me-downs and grandparents' generosity and my eBay scavenging). Towheads just attract some big time attention; truly they do. (In some future post, we can discuss--or I can pontificate--about the not-so-subtle racism of our cultural ideals of beauty.) When Otter was small we'd have to put a hat on him to be able to take him out in public and prevent strangers from touching him. With the hat on, no one noticed him much. Really.

I know his grandparents won't quite believe it, but I'm thinking it's maybe all the hair. Maybe G and I are just overfond and strangers are just towhead-blinded and no one will tell us he's not as stunning as we think.

If you've met Otter and feel I'm on to something, don't feel you have to be first in line to email and say so. I'm thinking we can go a while longer being fondly hallucinatory that he's a peach of a child.

Signing hurt and help, part 2

Part 2: Help

All week I've been focusing hard on not just saying "do you need help?" and making the 'HELP' sign to Otter whenever he fussed to get assistance with some toy, but also waiting for him to respond to my question. He would say "Uehp" (hard to render in actual English phonemes; it's a cross between an "eh" and an "uh" sound), and then I would show him how to make the 'HELP' sign with his hands, placing one fist on his other palm and using the palm hand to raise the fist hand.

Over the course of the week, he began to do this sign on his own, although he hasn't mastered the flat palm part, and just grips both hands together and raises them. This is neat, and once he gets it and starts doing it instead of the fussing noises, our house and his temper will both be much improved.

This Sunday morning, I slept in, and G took Otter into the living room to play (and hooray for partners who do this; we alternate weekend days so that we each get to sleep in one day a week). While they were playing, Otter pulled out a fabulous board book by Mary Murphy called "I Like It When". On one page, the text reads "I like it when you let me help" and shows a little penguin with a rake trotting beside a big penguin with a dustpan. When G and Otter got to that page, before G read any of it, Otter said "uehp" and made the 'HELP' sign. This is pretty neat, as he's responding not to the pictures (we've never used 'HELP' in any sort of raking situation; I suspect Otter's never seen a real-life rake) but to the text. He remembered that this page was about "help" and connected that to the sign.

It's fascinating seeing a child acquire language. This month's been a big one for that: he said "dog" today for the first time, and signed 'CAT' for the first time. That one is especially interesting to me as he's been able to say both "cat" and "kitty" for a couple of months. Stories we'd heard fomr other parents doing signs with their kids had suggested that kids dropped the sign for something virtually as soon as they could make the word, out of efficiency: it's (acocording to this theory) easier or quicker to say than to sign something. I had been saddened to think Otter would give up his signs as soon as he could say more words; now it looks as if that may not be the case.

I read in "Einstein Never Used Flash Cards" that kids, once they have about fifty words, hit a veritable explosion of language acquisition, asking perpetually "what zat?" and averaging about nine new words a day learned... I can feel that tsunami coming, and hope we can respond with patience to the perpetual requests for labelling, and can keep up with his recent requests not just for the words for things but also for the signs. We may be the ones signalling 'HELP.'

Signing hurt and help: part 1

Part 1: Hurt
As family and friends know, we've been using ASL signs with Otter for almost a year now. Now he seems to be learning them almost faster than we can look them up to show him.

Two of the ones my workshop teacher highly recommended were 'HURT' and 'HELP'. over the past month, he's learned how to make 'HURT', usually when he falls down, accompanied by a fairly accurate imitation of Mama's melodramatic "Owww," the one I used to try to help him learn hurt. The good thing about the "Owww" is that it should be recognizable to people even if they don't recognize the 'HURT' sign he does with it, tapping the tips of his two index fingers together. Ideally, he needs to learn to do this sign next to the area he's hurt.

The bad thing about the "Owww" is that it's probably among the funniest sounds he makes. It's a highpitched cute little sound that makes me want to laugh, which is not so kind when your child is hurting. He accompanies it with an inquisitive look and intently holds your gaze to see if you understand, and then repeats the sound and the sign, over and over (as I did when I was trying to teach him).

Now he's experimenting to test the limits of where and how his signs and words apply, and to test out his ability to communicate with us. So today he fell down, and absoltuely did not hurt himself in any significant way. Nonetheless he made the "Owww" and the 'HURT' sign repeatedly, seeming to enjoy both the pretending and the resulting conversation we had where I said "yes, Otter fell down; do you hurt?" checked each part of him and asked "does your elbow hurt? your butt?" and so on.

It's so weird and cool to be able to have conversations now with him. I can tell he's pretty psyched about it too, as he walked around the living room today signing 'DVD' 'ALL DONE' and saying "D done" after I turned off the Wiggles. Okay, his version of the DVD letter spelled sign is a somewhat garbled looking clenching of his fist and wiggling his fingers randomly, but it's clear what he means. I would respond, "Yes, all done" and do the 'ALL DONE' sign, and then we'd start the conversation over again.

I didn't say they were complicated conversations.