Oh banana!

It's nine in the morning on football Sunday, Del is sleeping soundly (fingers crossed), Daddy F and I are in PJs on the couch with hot mugs of tea, and the skies outside are grey and gloomy. It almost feels like actual winter here in the land where palm trees trump pine trees and where tourists think it's swimming weather even when it's 45 degrees and raining. I say that I miss "the seasons," but I think what I mean is that I miss the beauty of autumn and the fun and surprise of spring. I certainly don't miss the four months of frigid air and slate-colored skies. Admittedly, a Midwest winter leaves much to be desired. Mountains, for example. And sunshine. But since that is where I am from and the winters there are dark and cold, today is one of those rare California days that has me feeling like I'm home. So I invite the nostalgia in to hang out for a while, it being the season and all, and hunker down with us for a few hours of touchdowns and slipper socks.

But before I go, we must of course have a quick chat about language!

ASL charges onward!
Del added a new sign to her set about a week ago, which Daddy F and I had been trying to decipher. She very carefully makes the sign for "D," and then bends and unbends her index finger. Since this is fairly close to her name sign, we were wondering if she was trying to sign her name. We also guessed she could be signing "do-do?" because her daddy signs that to her all the time. Neither of these seemed like the right guess, and didn't line up with typical development, as I was expecting her next few signs to represent tangible things (nouns) like cereal or toy or water. So we just continued to encourage her by responding to the new sign in different ways, hoping that idiot mom and dad would sooner than later figure out what our clever little lady has been trying to tell us for a week now.

Then, (pah!) it all came together. . .

Earlier this morning Daddy F, Del and I were all chatting with Grandma J on the video phone (VP). Del recognized her Grandma right away and got very excited and started waving. I sat Del between Daddy F and I on the couch and attempted to eat my oatmeal as Del climbed all over me and lunged for my breakfast. I did my best to restrain her on my lap and continued to eat, while Grandma laughed at Del's antics. Then Grandma told us she saw Del sign the new "D" sign with finger wiggle that we had just told her about. I looked at Del and sure enough, she was still signing it. I still didn't know what she wanted, but I knew she was hungry so I handed her to daddy and grabbed a banana from the kitchen. When I gave it to her she got really excited (more so than usual. . .she loves to eat and really loves bananas so banana eating is typically an exciting event), and signed her new sign again. Then again. And looked at me with the expression that looked like, "Finally mommy! What took you so long?" and Daddy F signed "banana" and Del flapped her arms and laughed and signed her version of "banana" once again and it was like magic. It was so incredible not just to learn what she was trying to say and to have it reinforced that she is truly communicating with us, but to see her gain trust in us, that we will try to figure out what she wants to say.

The She-Beast Roars (alternate title: Del's sound exploration continues)

My oh my how the days fly by. Here I am, desperately late in buying my airplane tickets for a trip home for the holidays, and I barely registered that Thanksgiving has come and gone so quickly. Again. It would seem I still find wonder in the rapidity of life. It still surprises me when I blink and I'm this old. Sitting right here. On this day of all days. And my daughter is nearing nine months old. I ponder such thoughts and can't help but wonder: is this what drives us humans in our lives to learn and do and accomplish? Is that what drives me? The incessant feeling as though the passing of time is like gravity towards the future, pulling us along, every day closer to our demise than our inception. Is that what makes us stop to savor the magic and beauty of the tiny moments in life? Is that why I get caught up staring at Del, trying to memorize what her face looks like this very moment? Life and language are both fleeting and ephemeral like that. The perfect words come out to match the moment just experienced, and then poof! they're both gone, dissipated into the ether and forever after relying on our tricky memories to lock those moments, those images, those words down in some cerebral vault to be brought forth and enjoyed at some point in the future.

Wow, ok. Major digression there. Just feeling a little mortal lately. Something to do with motherhood, I'm thinking.

Onto the declared subject of this blog: Del's growling. And screeching. And noise making in general. It is delightful and exciting and only very rarely is it so terrible that I have to hand her off to Daddy F so I can run outside and give my ears a break. She stopped babbling a few weeks back, seemingly to focus her energy on signing and how to make the most monstrous sounds possible for an eight-month-old. She will get super excited when I'm feeding her and will start grunting and flapping her arms like she wants to fly out of her high chair. I have to trick her with silly dances and songs to get the spoon in her mouth while she's grinning at her ridiculous mama. After babbling pretty consistently on the /b/ and /d/ sounds a few weeks/months back, Del has now started to play with all kinds of nonlinguistic sounds. Or rather, non English sounds, such as tongue clicking and velar frication and raspberries and lip popping and "yayayayaYA!" She has started to produce some variegated, or varied, babbling, such as "badaga," where she alternates between different consonants but stays on the same vowel. She makes the /k/ (as in "key") sound often now, along with /g/ (as in "go"), and a laterally lisped /s/ (similar to the sound in "see" but said like Sylvester from Looney Tunes).

Her signing continues to astound me. I just can't get over the fact that this tiny human is already actively communicating in symbols. She has two signs that she uses very consistently, but she uses them in different ways. Her most common sign is "change," which she will initiate with us to let us know she needs to be changed. She also signs it while she is being changed and waits for affirmation from us, then smiles. She signs "milk," but not yet as a request. She will identify what it means by signing it often while she's nursing, but she hasn't initiated it yet to let me know she's hungry. She does that by panting and laughing maniacally as she grabs at the front of my blouse! Just another form of communication! Gotta say I'm looking forward to her growing out of that one.

I have videos to share, just having a bit of difficulty getting them up for various computer-related annoyances. I'll have two or three clips posted by the end of the weekend.

Happy (almost) Friday to you all. Any fun plans for the weekend?