Readin' in the skivies

Charlie loves to open books and turn the pages. Grandma, aren't you proud?

Here he is telling us his "own version", as the book is upside down.

Oh, he had to stop to take a snack break.

"Fishes!" Today in Walmart we wheeled past the pet section with the fish. I kept signing "fish" (pretend your hand is swimming like a fish). As we walked away, he started waving his hand back and forth, signing "fish". It wasn't until we hit the grocery section that he stopped signing.

He is picking up more and more baby signs. Here's a story: Last week we were house sitting for a family in a really big house. They have a gas burning fire and we knew it was going to be a source of conflict keeping Charlie away from the "pretty" flames. We have tried to teach him the sign for "hot" while we blow on food, cook on the stove, etc. Every time he looked at the fireplace he would sign "hot". Then today we were over at a neighbor's house for a play date who also had a fireplace. My friend tried to blockade him from climbing up the step to the fireplace by putting up couch pillows. I knew that would not deter him and we started a struggle to keep him away from the fireplace. I thought if I signed "hot" he might remember from before. He immediately signed "hot" back and completely lost interest in climbing the pillows up to the fireplace and went off to play with something else! It was really neat and fun to communicate with him like that.