I saw the sign

Many months ago, Meh read a book on baby sign language, which cautioned that a baby being exposed to signs at 10-12 months could take "2 to 3 weeks" to start actively making those signs, though toddlers over a year old are in "prime imitation" period but "may take a few days to a week". Or in the case of Zachary, perhaps many months or even a year?

While we'd gotten him to more or less sign "all done" by waving his hands in the air (as discussed in this previous entry), he never signed "more" -- he'd instead make a guttural "ahhh" sound when he saw more cheese or fruit being cut up in front of him, which communicated his point effectively. Yet for many months now, we've kept futilely signing it at him, more out of rote repetition and habit than anything else.

So it was with incredulous surprise that Meh saw him suddenly and cautiously sign "more" during dinner last night when he wanted more of his favorite quesadilla - he successfully repeated it several times, and we captured one rendition in this video:



Then he again signed 'more' when Meh was reading books to him, and once again when they were singing and playing! So even though the first sign took an eternity, he appears to have already leaped to an understanding of the concept beyond the realm of food. We've pulled the signing book back down off the shelf to see what other words we can teach him, though I'm not sure how interested he'll be when he's already starting to speak a few bits of actual words.