Hi!

Mary Clare learned how to wave "hi!" and "bye!" on Sunday. She was sitting at the table and I was trying to teach her the sign for 'more'* and she started waving "hi!" She was looking at her fingers intently, probably wondering what is it she had to do to get crazy mommy to just feed her another bite already. Then she bent them back and forth and then looked at me and I was giggling like a fool and repeating "hi!" over and over again and wiggling my fingers too. There was this instant when she just 'got' it. I could sorta even see the faint outline of a lightbulb over her head and she grinned and then wiggled her fingers and even tried actually say 'hi!' but it sounds more like 'eh!" right now. Oh and she does it backwards too, you know, her fingers and hand are actually facing herself. After hours of training and intense physical therapy, she now does 'bye!" as well as "hi!". Being the little stinker that she is she doesn't do it quite on command though and seems to really understand how to work the audience into a frenzy before giving her adoring fans what they want.

In related news, Mary Clare is crawling with ease and speed and has moved on to pulling up and almost cruising along. She loves to come up behind me in the kitchen and grab the back of my legs and pull up to stand. It is so sweet to feel those little hands creep up my ankles and calves as she climbs up, as long as her nails are trimmed, otherwise it is a teensy painful. Of course after she is up we are both trapped. If I move she flumps down and is often quite miffed, if I stand still she gets pretty bored, the back of my legs are not that appealing I guess. Usually I move very slowly and try to let her flump down gently and if she is in a mood she will continue to pursue me all over the kitchen. Sometimes I just pick her up though and carry her back to the starting line in the den and try to get some more done before she tracks me down again.

*The sign for 'more' is touching the fingers of both hands together in a point. I am not trying super hard to teach her baby signs, but my other kids all learned 'more' and it actually was helpful in cutting down whining as they became toddlers. 'More' is a great sign bc it works for lots of things, food, holding, playtime etc. Luke and Laine actually morphed the sign for more to mean 'please' bc we would always say 'more please' not just 'more' they used this sign all the time and even used it out of habit when they were almost 3 and were speaking fairly clearly. I think baby signing is pretty cool and maybe I will try some more signs with MC.