animals galore

A few weeks ago we had some friends over for dinner, and one of them mentioned how her sister had done baby signing with her kids, and how one time pre-verbal they had gone to the zoo, and the toddler was madly signing away for all the animals, and it hit me: we should do more signs for the different animals as Leona's soooooooooooo into them right now (kind of a forhead-slap moment).

So we did. Couple that with all the animal books we've been borrowing from the library, and Leona and Judge reading hours on end together, we now have a girl who went from dog ("woo' woo'") and duck (her hand kind of doing 'yapyapyap' like if she thought we were talking way too much) to quickly adding about 13 more to her repertoire, most of them perhaps unrecognizable to anyone but me and Judge as we're the ones who've made them up (and we have started coordinating between us, so she doesn't have two signs for each...not that it confused her when we were uncoordinated as she has three spoken languages she differentiates/understands as it is).

Reading the books consists of either her pointing to an animal and looking at us and we do the sign and say the animal, or she does the sign/sound and we say the animal, or sometimes us pointing and her doing the sign/sound (and then us saying the animal):

• Bear (from me): clawed hand swatting
• Giraffe (from me): tongue sticking out (to grab a leaf to eat...see, there is logic behind these, I swear!)
• Penguin (movement from me, sound from Judge): tip side to side (like a waddling penguin without walking) while saying 'tak tak tak'
• Lion (from Judge): lunging at you with clawed hands while saying 'rar'
• [and 'finished': hand open palm out by face]

• Fish (from Judge): and swimming wildly forward (until it hits her stomach) and saying 'psiiuuuuuuu' [my version which she loves when I do is a fish mouth...she has tried this a few times as well, but now the 'psiiuuuuuuu' and hand motion has stuck]
• Rabbit (from Judge): fingers on head doing rabbit ears [my version is wrinkling a bunny nose, which she does by squinting her eyes and then moving her mouth]
• Points to cat (this is one she is not interested in signing at all for some reason...I use the standard baby-sign for cat and say miao)
• [and 'come sit here': patting the spot she wishes you to sit]

Other animals on the current:

• Turtle (from Judge): really reaching breast-stroke motion with arms
• Rooster (from Judge/me): fully open hand on top of head like a mo-hawk
• Sheep/goat (from me): baaaa (innovative, I know)
• Cow (from me): pointing fingers on top of head as horns, bend forward and say mooooo (he uses closed fists)
• Pig (from Judge): pouty lips outward and hard breathing in and out
• Panda (from Judge): flat hands on cheeks (like if you were surprised) (we tried hand in a circle over eye but it just didn't take)

And some that haven't yet caught on:

• Horse (from me): loose 'flappy' lips as breathe out, you know, like a horse
• Crab (from Judge): sissor hands
• Seahorse (from Judge): 'cobra' arm

These are all I can remember at the moment (I think I've noted the majority of them, if not all).

So interesting to see which animals she picks out and which ones she slides over.



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