Bananas!

Several years ago, a coworker told me that her nephew was learning sign language in daycare and I was fascinated. It had never occurred to me that a baby might have the mental capacity to communicate so articulately before having the oral motor skills to form words. But apparently they do. Genius! I had no idea when I’d be having children, but I knew they would be learning to sign.

I know some people hear me mention signing with Lilly and roll their eyes or think, “Oh, you’re one of those moms.” You know, a breastfeeding, organic-eating, baby-wearing mom, who thinks you’re all that. Well, except for the last part, they are right. I certainly don’t think I’m all that — I’m pretty sure you have to shower daily to be all that. So I don’t even meet the basic qualifications. But I don’t see anything wrong with doing everything in my power to raise a healthy, happy child. I worked my ass off as a full-time attorney; why wouldn’t I do the same as a full-time mom?

So I started signing a few words with Lilly — eat, drink, more, milk —  when she was about 6 months old. According to Dr. Joseph Garcia, a leading proponent of teaching babies ASL, some babies will begin signing as early as 8 or 9 months. So I was very anxious to see Lilly signing back to me within 2-3 months. When she didn’t start signing promptly at 8 months, I started watching the Baby Signing Time DVDs with her, hoping that the songs and images of other babies signing would catch her attention. They did. She was excited and giggling from the get-go. I was optimistic. By 9 months it was clear that she understood some signs. If I signed milk, she would get excited and look to be nursed, but she still showed no interest in signing herself.

By the end of her 11th month, I was feeling pretty down on the whole signing thing. Maybe I did it wrong. Dr. Garcia says repetition is key, and I didn’t sign “eat” every time I fed her; and no one else really signed with her regularly. Maybe she just thinks I’m strange, or maybe she thinks it’s like the itsy bitsy spider — purely for her entertainment. In either case, I was beginning to feel silly about signing to her and debated whether I should just stop. Then 5 days before her 1st birthday, we were playing with some toys and she noticed Elliott’s baseball cap on the floor. She looked over at it and with an unsure look on her face began tapping her head. Thinking she wanted me to put it on her head, I did. She took it off, handed it to me and again tapped her head. That’s when it clicked. “Hat! Yes! You’re signing hat!” I still wasn’t 100% certain she was signing, but she seemed to be. She had the sign right and “hat” is in one of her DVDs. I called into Elliott, who had been half-heartedly going along with my signing craze for months, to come see Lilly sign. He was pleased that I was pleased, but I could tell he was a bit skeptical. It was kind of an intuitive gesture, maybe it wasn’t really a sign.

Less than an hour later, we were getting ready to take her up to bed and she started squirming in Elliott’s arms as we walked passed the kitchen island. He stopped to see what the problem was and she looked right at me, gestured to herself, rubbed her belly, signed “eat” and pointed to a banana! I shrieked: “Oh my god! She just said she’s hungry and she wants a banana!” We were shocked. Completely floored. And completely ecstatic. It was the moment I’d been waiting for and it was fantastic! If it was a ploy to stay up past bedtime, it worked. Lilly wants a banana, Lilly gets a banana! Hell, if she had signed “I want a pony” right then, we would have run right out and gotten her one! It was my most exciting parenting moment to date.

Over the next few days, we were stunned by how many signs she had absorbed over those past few months. She was no longer this little baby whose moods and thoughts were a constant mystery. We could see — literally see — what was going on in that little head. We learned more about her in those first couple weeks of signing than we had in months! She told us she likes a drink first thing every morning. She likes to play for a little bit in the morning before she eats breakfast. She associates the bathroom with washing her hands and she loves to brush her teeth.

We also learned the key to Lilly’s happiness: bananas. She loves bananas. I mean loves bananas. Within a week of her first sign, she learned to sign “banana” and it was “banana” all day long. How are you this morning, Lilly? Banana. What would you like for breakfast? Banana. Why are you crying, Lilly? Banana. Banana. Banana. I could not believe how much of her day was spent thinking about bananas! And the fact that she could now communicate her love for bananas was apparently a huge relief. The first time she used it she had been throwing a bit of a tantrum. I asked her what was wrong and she signed “eat.” I offered her several options and she was clearly getting more frustrated. Finally, she stopped and for the first time signed what appeared to be “banana” (also from her DVD). I grabbed a banana and asked,”you want a banana?” She gasped, threw her hands up in the air and fell over squealing with excitement! It reminded me of images I’ve seen of girls fainting with Beatlemania. It was incredible!

Now Lilly’s signing vocabulary has grown to about twenty words and she’s eager to learn more. Signing has removed much of the confusion and frustration we were both experiencing in our daily lives before she was able to tell me what she needed or wanted. And it has also added a new level of communication since she can also tell me what she hears, sees, and knows about her surroundings. So people can roll their eyes all they want when I talk about signing with my baby because at the end of the day, we are happier for having learned sign language. No matter how pretentious some people think it is, when Lilly is on the cusp of a breakdown out in public, I am content knowing that she can give me a silent sign to tell me what’s on her mind and that I have a banana in my bag — just in case.

The Bananas! by MushBrain, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at mushbrain.net.