Word -to my mother

Lucy has really taken off in the speech department these past few weeks. She's said dada and mama for quite a while but except random words here and there that she refused to repeat (upstairs, water to name two), not much else. But all of sudden, she's figured out she likes to talk. At first, she went with words that she didn't have signs for which meant her vocabulary was a bit odd and included words like man, wool and empanada. Seriously, what kid says empanada (well, em-da) but not ball? I guess my girl, who loves to eat but still can't throw!

But now she is starting to replace signs with words and will frequently say mom, dad, no (and now it actually sounds like no instead of naaa!), more, and baby and big. This is a good thing, but makes me a bit sad too. I love her signing, its so cute!

So, being nostalgic for the good old days that aren't quite gone yet, I decided to list all her signs. I knew she had a lot but writing them down, wow! Most of these were driven by her interests. If I had to pick 75 words for my toddler to know, I wouldn't have included caterpiller, candle or cut. And the ones with the * are the ones she "invented."

dog
cat
bird
fish
bear
squirrel
cow
horse
pig
sheep
alligator
bird
bug
caterpiller
spider
mouse
turtle
frog

flower
tree
grass
leaf
outside
wind
sun
rain
snow

milk-milk (nurse)
sleep
play
stir-stir (bake/cook)*
color*
dance*
be silly*
hug*
back rub*
potty
bath
brush teeth
wipe-wipe (wipe off table)*
fight*
cut* (I promise she isn't a violent child. She knows fight from a couple books with nursery rhymes and wrestling polar bear cubs. And she knows cut because she likes to have her food cut into little pieces and play with her Melissa and Doug veggie cutting toy)

no*
more
all done
quiet*
sad/cry

cold*
hot*
hurt
icky*
wait

where/wait/I don't know*

banana
drink/cow drink (milks)
water

mom
dad
grandpa
bubbie
girl
boy

shoes/socks
eye
nose
head
hair

little
big
light
dark/shadow*

candle*
phone*
book
ball
doll
bubble
family bible time (book + candle)*

I've had several people ask me for signing advice. I didn't do anything special, I think she's just a very communicative girl and we provided an outlet. But because I've been asked, here is what we did:

1) At about 4-6 months we picked three or so signs (milk, more and change - although we dropped change later for kitty because she took an interest in Zeeba) and started signing them. I say 4-6 months because we really weren't consistent until 6 months. I think it is good to pick concrete signs to begin with and make them signs that have a pay-off. She likes getting milk-milk and more (snacks, books etc) so she paid attention. I don't think she really cared if she was polite or not so please wouldn't have been a good first choice.

2) Keep at it. She started responding to signs around 8-9 months but didn't sign back at first. We kept going.

3) Pay attention. It wasn't long before she stared signing back although her first attempts may have gone unnoticed if we weren't really watching because they weren't very good :-) Praise those first attempts so they keep going! When she would sign back "incorrectly," we wouldn't correct her but we would keep doing it the right way. Most of the time she would slowly get it right, but now always. She still does "daddy" wrong but consistently so.

3) Add signs as needed. It doesn't hurt to do more than 2-3 at a time as long as you can remember to be consistent about it. She also started making up her own. Most of those were pretty intuitive and sometimes they ended up being similar to the real sign but even if they were, we kept doing it her way if she "invented it" before we showed it to her.