I’ve not managed to blog recently but have been writing down a few notes so I can fill in the gaps. Two weeks ago we started going to TinyTalk baby signing classes. I was chatting to the teacher about which signs Mara knows, it made me wonder exactly how many she now uses herself. Here is a list of the ones that I can think of off the top of my head:

Cake
Biscuit
Strawberry
Hurt/ouch/pain
More
Milk (she signs this for milk and drink)
Donkey
Horse
Bird
Dog
Bounce/trampoline
Dance
All gone
Cat
Chocolate
Fish
Dirty

When signing most of the words listed above she also attempts to say the word, I am really impressed with her speech. I’ve heard before that when a baby has older siblings they are slower to talk. I think Mara is so used to hearing so much noise in the house that she is making sure she gets a word in! She really is trying hard to speak.

We were in a cafe today eating chocolate cake. Mara knows the sign for cake but I thought I would introduce the sign for chocolate. This sign uses the same handshape as the letter ‘c’, you tap the ‘c’ shape on your chin. Mara was sat on my knee and wasn’t looking at me, rather than sign chocolate on my chin I did it on hers. She then turned round to me and signed it on my chin. What was even more impressive was that she said ‘chochchate’ at the same time.