Little Communicator

I love communicating with Elijah and trying to figure out what it is that he is trying to say both in words and with sign language. Today, he signed a complete thought, which was "Give me my hat." He signed "hat" then what we use as "give." We're still working on the word, "please," although he did "please" in his own way by bowing as he put his two hands out with palms facing up for "give." That is usually how Koreans receive things from people, so when he wants me to give him something he does that.

He also tries to put his two index fingers together to make a cross to sign that we prayed. I don't know what the sign is for "Jesus" so Paul made it up by making a cross sign. Whenever we pray, he bows hunches forward like he is bowing and makes a cross.

He also likes making his own choices on books and things he wants to do or see. We give him options on what books he wants us to read and he chooses.

Recently, Paul made a slide show of various things that Elijah is interested in, so he now goes straight to Paul's computer, tries to open the laptop, and signs "elephant," "chicken," or "airplanes", etc.

The other day, he saw chicken meat and signed chicken. Paul took him to the poultry shop and told him that a chicken was going to be killed so that we could eat it. He didn't let him watch the killing of a chicken but he decided that he was going to explain it to him. No wonder he saw the chicken meat sitting on the counter and signed to me, "chicken."

One of his favorite signs is "more." Now he is using it for almost everything if he wants some kind of response from us. I have realized that sometimes it means "faster." Other times it has meant "help." Today, I taught him how to correctly sign "help" and he practiced using it. Sometimes he uses the sign for "more" for a "drink." I'm not sure why but he has never used the sign for "water" or "drink." He usually reaches out for the sippy cup or sucks his thumb. Weird.

I love being able to communicate with him. I think I am going to love it even more when he starts to talk, although he might be a non-stop talker! Oh, I can hear the word, "Why?" ringing in my ears already! ;)