My Cute Little Signer

Nathan doesn't say much. He communicates pretty well in other ways though. His latest thing is grabbing your clothes or body part and pulling you to get whatever he wants or needs. Today he was pulling on Kate's head to have her help him get something...she didn't love it. We started signing with him a little while ago to try to help him be less frustrated (and less frustrating for us). He knows how to sign milk, juice, water, help, open, in, bear, bed, blanket, dirty, home, shoes, socks, stars, more, please, thank you, cookie, cracker, eat, sad, and Tanner. We tried to have him learn the kids' names which we made up. Tanner was the "T" sign and then the sign for baby (like rocking a baby). When Nathan signs it it resembles the chicken dance. He is so cute when he signs and it has helped. I don't know when he'll start to talk, but we are doing what we can to try to help him out. He really is creative with how he communicates. He is good at reading people and listening to what's going on around him. He'll hear a child crying across the chapel and sign sad to us. He'll hear me say I need to change Tanner and he'll get me the diapers. When I say Tanner is hungry he signs eat. When he's thirsty he'll go and get his sippy and lid, bring it to me, and sign milk or water. When his sisters are bugging him, take a toy, or hurt him he comes and replays it for me. He is really good at charades and he effectively tattles doing it. He'll point to Kate and then hit himself in the chest or head. He is really funny because sometimes he hits himself hard to show me how hard she hit him and how much it hurt him. I've tried to explain that he doesn't have to hurt himself to show me. I used to talk with my hands and I have found that he watches me because he thinks I am signing. I was holding Tanner and patting his backside to try to get him to go to sleep as I was talking to Nathan one time and he thought I was trying to pat my tummy as a sign so he started doing it. I didn't even catch on to what he was doing until Nathaniel told me he was trying to copy me. We tried to upload a video of Nathan signing and it was adorable, but it didn't work. How unfortunate.