As I’ve said in previous posts, we are teaching the boys sign language. We decided to do this before they were born in the hopes that they would have a tool to communicate with us before they were (are) verbal. We’d read that learning to sign decreases tantrums and increases spoken words. We bought some books and had been signing a few words with them when a friend ours recommended Signing Times DVD series. I got one on E-bay and the boys were transfixed. It was really the first time they paid attention to the tv – and while we don’t want them to become couch potatoes, it was comforting to know that if they were going to watch tv, they’d also be learning something. So, I went back on E-bay and bought the entire series - all 13 volumes – and 4 sing-a-long CDs. We are officially Signing Times groupies.

So, meet Rachel.


We feel like she lives with us. She is the host of the Signing Times series and can be seen in our house a few times a day. I typically put an episode on while I am trying to get ready in the morning. And while they don’t sit and watch all 25 minutes of it, it usually buys me a good 10 minutes while they sit on our bed, drink their milk, and watch Rachel, Leah, Alex, and Hopkins. And if you’ve read previous entries, you know that 10 minutes of kids not destroying something is golden. And then we watch an episode in the evening before bed while they are drinking their milk.

The first episode is definitely the favorite. They are transfixed. And as Traci said, “Carter signs the words before they do them on tv!” I don’t know if I should be proud that he knows them all – or worried that he’s watched it so many times that he has it memorized. Given that this is all the tv they watch, I am going with the former.

Until recently, they would only sign when asked, “How do you sign _______?” But last night when we were at the mall, Carter started signing car – and sure enough right in front of him was a display car. And then as we walked past a fountain, he started signing water. Yay for proactive signing!

Grayson signs when he wants. He is a child who doesn’t perform on command (well, unless you get out the camera and then he’ll give you a big gummy grin and say “cheeeeeese” (or something kinda like it.) And his signs crack us up. This sign for fish is to wiggle your hand back and forth, like a swimming fish. But not Grayson. He gets his whole arm into it. We figure his fish is big. Or there is a whole school of them. And he loves to sign ‘thank you.’ Yay!

Gray has also started speech therapy. I think the biggest challenge for Gray is going to be sitting still and playing with the therapist. Grayson doesn’t like to sit and play with toys. He is the kid that is in the ball pit, out of the ball pit, playing with the kitchen, finding the ball and playing basketball, running around with the play food, in the ball pit, out of the ball pit…..all in the matter of 2 minutes. Sitting and putting a puzzle together and sounding out farm animals and their sounds is not his idea of a good time. But he did learn ‘neigh’ last week – and sounds so cute saying it.

Could this kid be a bigger ham?

Do you think he'll ever have more than 9 teeth? He is just cutting his 12 month molars. And given that he has 2 year old molars in there somewhere, we seem we'll be in teething mode forever.