Now You See It...

We've been reading these little Tonka board books recently. One is opposites, one is colors, and a third has vehicles. I've been showing Christopher the signs for the different things in these books. He's picked up quite a few new ones recently.

He went for a long period where he didn't want to sign back to anyone. He'd watch out of the corner of his eye, but life was too full of other interesting things to slow down and wave his hands in the air.

Since his new tenure at Purdue however (wink wink), he has reconsidered his previous view on signing. Now he is showing daddy everything that mommy shows him how to sign. He modifies a few signs that he can't quite produce yet, but he is definitely giving it the "old college try" (I couldn't resist that phrase.)

The cutest modification he makes thus far is for "I love you." He can't quite get the thumb, index and little fingers to all come up at the same time. Instead, he points that little index finger straight up into the air, with his thumb bent out to the side ever so slightly. Just so I'm clear on what he is signing, he hollers, "Love ya Mommy!" It's the greatest thing to see him at the bedroom window, signing this as I pull away...

Hey Professor! Can You Teach Me to Sign?

My dad came over one evening to watch the little guy so I could leave for work. Next thing I know, out he comes from my bedroom, sporting one of my few purses over his shoulder. The little hand comes up and he says,
"Papa, you can go home now. I'm going to work."

"You're what?!"

"I said, I'm going to work. I got a job."

"You've got a job?"

(Exasperated) "Yes, Papa, I got a job."

"Well, where do you work?"

"At Purdue."

"You work at Purdue? What do you do at Purdue?"

(gestures randomly) "I signing at Purdue."

"You do?!"

"Yes, like Mommy do."

"Well, will you teach Papa some signs?"

"Umm, no, you take my class at Purdue." (trying to make a buck already)

"Please, just one sign?"

(sighs) "Ok, just one. (signs "grandpa") "There, one sign, that's your name. It means Papa."

Cloudy, With a Chance of Learning...

A few days ago, it rained pretty hard in the evening. There was a lot of thunder and lightening as well. I was helping Christopher get ready for bed. As is the case most evenings these days, he was not being cooperative. So I used the storm outside as a way to get his mind off of getting ready for bed.
"Christopher, can you hear that?" (signing "Listen" as I asked) He cocks his head and listens. "That's rain" ("Rain). The sky lit up, and I showed him the sign for lightening. "Listen again..." There, that's thunder (Thunder).
He stood on his bed for a few minutes, listening outside. "I hear the rain!" he exclaimed signing it over and over. He called his Daddy into the room and proceeded to give him the same weather lesson, complete with signs, that I had just given to him. The next day, he told his grandparents the same weather story.

What's Up?

It's been awhile since I've posted here. So Many things have been going on in the last few months, it's hard to keep up. Here's a little recap...
Last weekend, Purdue North Central had their first community event for Deaf and Hard of Hearing children. Kids from all over came together to spend the day learning ASL, doing skits and playing games, and just being able to hang out with other people who use ASL.
When you are a Deaf or HOH child in a mainstream setting, sometimes you are the only child in the building like yourself. There is not always another child, or a classroom of other children where you can go for lessons in ASL, or another sign system. It can be pretty lonely and isolating. The PNC event gave kids the opportunity to get together with family and friends, and meet new people who also use sign to communicate.
It was a fun day, and we look forward to seeing it happen on a yearly basis. Thanks to the PNC ASL Club and Karen Donah for putting this together.

Play Group Fun!

If you live in Northern Indiana and are signing with your child(ren), come join the fun! Once a month, a group of parents and kids get together to play and sign in a fun environment. All ages and signing skill levels are welcome to attend. Deaf and hearing families get together for this event. All you have to do is be willing to use the sign language you know.
Saturday, May 5, the group will be meeting at Mega Play in Mishawaka from 11-1. Cost is $3.00 for the little kiddo area...loads of fun with bouncers for little ones and ball pits and BIG bouncers for the walkers.

Teens can come too and play golf or video games.

Come join us! We'd love to have you there!

Calling All Signing Time Fans!

Signing Time is shown on a number of PBS stations around the country. Those of us who know Signing Time, love Signing Time. If you live in Northern Indiana, however, you are among the unlucky who do not get Signing Time on our local PBS station, WNIT. If you fall into this category, please take a few minutes and either call or write to the station and tell them you would like to see this program on their line-up.

You'll be glad you did!

Write to:
WNIT Public Television
PO Box 3434
Elkhart, IN 46515-3434
or
2300 Charger Blvd
Elkhart, IN 46514

Call: (574) 675-9648
FAX: (574) 262-8497

E-mail: wnit@wnit.org

Beware the Creature in the Pack and Play...

My friend Karen has four beautiful girls. The youngest, Kara, is a little spitfire. (Okay, Riley and Sydney are too!) Anyway, Karen sent me an email a little over a week ago to share a funny story with me.

Kara is a little over a year old now, and actually started signing at 3 1/2 months. She is very expressive and her eyes light up when you sign with her.

Anyway, this is Karen's story...
" I was cleaning and my youngest was in the pack and play. All of sudden, she
starts SCREAMING.

I ran to see her and she is looking at me, screaming and signing "ice cream,
want, and eat" over and over.

Never mind that she JUST had a bowl of applesauce and cereal and it was 8:30 am.

Ha! I guess she got the hang of the ice cream sign yesterday at Grandma's
house."

You go Kara! Don't let that mommy of yours withhold your breakfast of choice! It has calcium. ;)

You Go Girl! Keep It Up!

I was out at Babies R Us today for their Breastfeeding and Maternity Fair. BS2C had an information booth about signing with the kiddos and info about our classes. I did a little presentation about the benefits of signing with little ones.

The day was a bit slow. I had hoped more people would be there. But the highlight of my day was seeing a mom and daughter who just completed my Level I class a couple of weeks ago. Mom Donna was so excited to share that almost ten month old Savannah used her first two signs recently! Milk and more. Way to go Savannah!

SKI-HI What's That?

I gave a presentation yesterday to a group of Service Coordinators for First Steps here in our local area. Now this may sound silly coming from someone who spends time standing in front of large groups of people interpreting, but I was nervous.

I CAN stand in front of a few hundred people say, at a college commencement and interpret. I don't even notice the fact that there are so many people around. But stick me in front of a small group of people and ask me to speak, and I start to sweat.

This time, my nervousness came from having never presented this material before. I am a SKI-HI Parent Advisor, and I went through the training. But I only just recently started to use my training, and here I was standing in front of people who could help me get the word out about what my colleagues and I do.

Instead of my trying to go through the presentation again, just click on the link to your left under "Parents with Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children." Do you see the one that says "SKI-HI Institute?" That's the one. Go ahead..click on it..I promise, it won't bite. It will tell you more about the program than I ever could. Okay, maybe in a year I might be able to speak more eloquently on the topic than I do now.

What I can say, is that after being an Educational Interpreter in public schools for a few years, I was saddened and frustrated at the fact that Deaf and HOH kids seemed to be falling through the cracks academically. Parents didn't seem to know what was out there to help their kids succeed in school and in life. So when Karen (we get each other involved in lots of trouble this way) brought up the SKI-HI program to me, I thought, hmmm, here's a great way to get parents the information, education and resources they need to make the best possible choices for their kids. Sounds like a win-win situation for everyone.

If I had to come up with my own way to explain SKI-HI, I guess I'd say it like this:

"Parents raising a child with a hearing loss have a unique canvas to work with. A SKI-HI Parent Advisor is like a guide who can help you understand the various colors available to paint on that canvas. Only you can choose the colors for your masterpiece. You may blend, shade or highlight colors until you find the right combination. A Parent Advisor can help you through that process."

How will YOU color your child's world?

"

So You Think You Can Just Holler At Me?

My son broke his leg last week, and is now in a body cast for the next month. Lying on your back in the living room is no fun for a normally active two year old. So to help us both out, I hit our local library and checked out a bunch of Signing Time videos that I don't have yet.

I hit pay dirt! He watched them a little before, but now he really gets into the shows. (I know, I know, how can he NOT, it's not like he can run away, right?) I caught him the other day, signing along with Alex and Leah about food. He was showing his stuffed kitty the sign for cracker.

Because he spends so much time on his back these days, he's become pretty demanding. A request for a glass of milk has turned into, "Mommy...Mommy...Moooommmmmmyyyy I WANT MILK!" So the signing has been a blessing, since I now have to remind him to use his polite inside voice and sign "please" when requesting something. "Thank you" has also made its appearance recently. I wonder what's next...

Shameless Plug

If you check in the links for Parents who sign with their hearing children, you'll notice a link for Sign A Lot. There are many great products out there for kids (and parents) who are learning to sign, and Sign A Lot has two cool videos. These are geared for older kids (over 3), although the little ones will like the music and signing as well. There are older kids who are featured in the videos, which is why they are cool for older kids.

Why the shameless plug? Well, at the end of the second video (I'll get the title and change this later), my friend Karen and her four beautiful girls are featured in a segment of kids showing their favorite signs. The other reason for the shameless plug is that more people need to check these videos out and buy them so that Sign A Lot can add more videos to their offerings. Right now there are only two videos available, since they are a new company. Want to see more offerings from Sign A Lot? Then get some of your own and tell them you want more Sign A Lot!

Look At Him Go!

I have been teaching a Mommy and Me class for the last three weeks. Eight mommies and their babies, ranging in age from 3 weeks to ten months old. This is my first class with little ones, having only done classes with children who can run and take things out of my bag of tricks.

It's been fun, even though there hasn't been much more action from the babies besides kicking, getting excited and smiling when mom signs.

That is, until this past Monday. The oldest little guy, who has begun walking all over the place, decided to walk around stealing snack containers. I asked him, "Are you looking for more?" I signed "more" to him while asking, and to everyone's astonishment, he responded with the sign for "more." What a smart cookie!

Baby Steps 2 Communication

Last summer I led a discussion at my Mother's and More group about the benefits of signing with infants and young children. My friend Karen attended the meeting as my guest. The talk was well received, and we were both surprised at the number of people who were actually interested in the topic.

It was, as Oprah says, an "A-Ha Moment."

So Karen and I had a little business meeting about what it might take to get something like this off the ground. Karen already had her own interpreting agency, Northern Indiana Communication Exchange, Inc. She did a little research, and I did a little research, and we checked out different companies that had teaching tools for a venture like ours. We found Sign 2 Me, and the rest is history.

We both became certified presenters through the Sign2Me company, and Karen added a couple of others who were interested in teaching classes, and we found a place to hold classes.

Jump ahead to this year...

Karen recently decided to throw this area of the business over to me to take care of. So I came up with a catchy little name, and have been trying to market like crazy. Registration numbers have been slow since our first classes last fall, but I am hoping that will change.

Signing with preverbal hearing children is a no-brainer, really. It helps them develop early communication before their spoken language is ready to develop, cuts down on frustration and tantrums as a result. Not to mention that research has shown that it does NOT hinder spoken language development, but rather enhances it. Add to that the benefits of developing better literacy skills, larger spoken vocabularies, higher IQ scores, and signing is a recipe for success academically. And learning through the classes is not as difficult as some parents think.

Hmmm. Maybe I should do a commercial...

The Hands Are Going Again

Being a Sign Language Interpreter, it was important that I expose my children to ASL as early as possible. Christopher loved it when he was little. His first sign was produced around five months of age. More followed and then the spoken language took off.
Sometime after his first birthday, he got into his head that if I wanted to sign, that was fine, but HE was neither looking at me while I did it, nor making any attempt to use the new signs I was using.

No big deal. It happens, especially when other developmental milestones are popping up.

A few weeks ago, he decided that maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to sign after all. So now I have a little parrot. "Mommy, Daddy, hug, cheese, thank you" are all part of his signing dictionary now.


Last week, he surprised Daddy by calling him into the bedroom at bed time. When Daddy showed up, he said and signed, "Daddy, hug please." Suffice it to say that somebody left the room with a big smile on his face.


He's such a cute kid. How'd we get so lucky?

The Birth of BS2C

Baby Steps 2 Communication came about as a result of wanting to provide American Sign Language (ASL) classes to local families and those who work with young children. The goal is to provide fun classes that promote the use of ASL with preverbal hearing infants, children with special needs who are language delayed, and the adults in their lives.

On this blog, you can find information on finding classes in your area, articles on why using ASL is beneficial, links to resources, and general observations based on my experience in the trenches.

So sit back, grab a cup of coffee, and learn something new today!