Baby Sign Language

Baby Sign Language
Sign Language is something you teach your baby in order to help them communicate and lessen their frustrations as they learn how to talk.  There is research showing that hearing babies who use sign have a larger vocabulary than those babies who do not. When you teach your child signs, it is important to teach signs that will be meaningful to you and them.  One of the first signs I taught Max was "more" and did it over a few meals when he began to love to eat.  He picked it up pretty quickly.  Here is how I did it.  
I started by signing more right before I would give him another bite and then feed it to him immediately after the sign.
Next, I did hand over hand to teach him 'more' and then he would do it with my help right before I fed him.  We spent a bit of time on this step.  
He then began to do it spontaneously and when he did, I would reward him with verbal praise and, of course, more food.  I would encourage him by signing along with him and saying "more" if I knew he wanted more food but got stuck.  

Max signing "please" when asking for more meatballs.

Once he was able to say "more", he no longer used the sign unless we were not listening to him and he really wanted something.  He also tended to generalize "more" for "again" when playing. This happened with "ball", "book", "please" , "shoes" and "cheese" as well.

Max signing "Thank you" and being a little silly at snack

As you could see, he doesn't quite have the whole sign process for "thank you" down, but he is putting his flat hand up to his face, with the intention of signing "Thank you".  When I have an extra free hand, I will help him pull his hand down from his face.  By the way, that day he ate a whole avocado for snack along with blueberries, meatballs, and cheese.  I think he must be growing!

Here are a few baby signs that you might want to start with, but there are many books and websites that have a lot of baby signs.  I might have to invest in a book to really teach Max and keep up with his interest in signing.  We got a little signing book from the library last week and he loves looking at it.  He is trying the signs "daddy" (which he can say) and "phone" (he now uses remotes and my cell phone to help him with this sign).  He even picked up the pretend phone while at the pool to call Daddy.  It was really sweet.

http://jungandlittleone.blogspot.com/2011/02/cute-signing-babybaby-sign-language.html

Falafel and feta yogurt sauce

Since most of Max's favorite foods are in the shape of balls, I decided to see if he would like falafel.  This is one of my favorite foods and I could eat this every week if Paul liked it a little more. You need to plan ahead for this meal since the chick peas need to soak overnight. You do not need to precook them or hull the shells for this recipe.

2 cups of dried chick peas, soaked overnight and drained

1 onion

2-3 cloves of garlic

3 T ground flax

juice of 1 lemon

1-2 t cumin

1 t cayenne pepper

2 t baking soda

handful of herbs of choice (I like parsley or cilantro the best)

salt and pepper to taste

Place all ingredients in the food processor and pulse until everything is chopped and mixed up.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and for balls of falafel.  I used a small cookie scoop and that worked really well.  Bake at 375 degrees for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.  Serve with feta yogurt sauce (see below).  It can be eaten on pita, tortilla or on a salad.

Feta Yogurt Sauce

1 cup plain yogurt (drain if using regular yogurt to make thick like greek yogurt)

1/2 c crumbled feta

juice of 1 lemon

splash of red wine vinegar

1 t dried oregano

salt and pepper to taste

I don't usually measure the amounts of things I use, so add more feta or acid depending on how you like it.  You can also add cucumber if you want to make it more like a tzatziti sauce.

Now a final picture of Max reading with Daddy as well as Auntie Lo's kitty, Elbee.