Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy

True to our modern hip parenting style Carrie and I tried to teach Genevieve sign language at an early age so that she could more easily communicate her desires before she had complex language skills. After six months of training the only thing she knew was dog. That was all well and good but it didn't really satisfy her need to communicate. The books said that if she hadn't picked it up by a year we should give up. So we gave up.

Genevieve decided to one up us by creating her own sign language and forcing us to learn it. When she wants us to sing a song she waves her arm. When she wants a particular song she has a hand gesture specific to that song. She knows "wheels on the bus", "eensy weensy spider" and "open shut them". It is actually pretty funny to watch her wave her arm at us in a demanding manner. As we lay her in her crib at night her arm will instantly swing in request of a bed time song. When she is really exhausted it is a half-hearted wave but still a request not to be ignored.

She's also started to learn the words of a few of her songs. "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" is the current front runner. Though for her it is "Peeckle, Peeckle, mumble mumble", she'll then trail off and mumble until she shouts "Up above" before she drops back into mumbling. She also doesn't realize that the first and last verses are the same. She just assumes we're starting over again and she never tires of the song.

We also received a kids CD as a gift that preserves our sanity. The CD "For the Kids" is full of contemporary artists either covering children's songs or creating their own. We've played it at least a hundred times and it hasn't turned our brains to mush.