We’re from Boston, enunciation isn’t exactly our strong suit in the first place. Understanding the punch-drunk Mickey Rourke style mumblings of the Mayor (my son, not Menino) is a full time job in and of itself. When my nieces and nephew were younger, I had mastered the smile and nod. It didn’t really matter if I totally understood them, I got the gist of it, and if it was important, their mom was a fluent translator. When my son was born, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to communicate with him as well as my sister could.

For the first nine months of his life, the Mayor had no idea what the TV was. I was so ambitious back then. When the reality of keeping a growing boy occupied and entertained for 14 hours a day set in, I caved. I found a Baby Signing Time DVD at a thrift shop and we started watching it in the morning. He immediately loved it, and soon we started watching it before bed, too. When the library had a sign language story time, we were there. The boy was hooked.

After the story time, I found out that the woman who ran it also taught a class nearby. Each week, I noticed the Mayor’s hands moving more frequently, not signing any actual words yet, more like babbling with his fingers. Eventually, the signs came. “Milk”, “more”, “all done”, “diaper”, the survival signs. His tantrums started disappearing as he got more comfortable telling me what he needed. The flood gates were opened, and by his first birthday he was signing over 50 words. More importantly, he was starting to recognize the things he knew, both in books and outside.

A few months later, when he started speaking (besides the constant stream of “mommy, mommy, mommy”), he was still signing, thankfully. Without it, our mutual frustration would have boiled over at some point. For example, his “cracker” sounded like “daddy”, and even with all the love he had to give, if I gave him a hug instead of a handful of Goldfish, we’d have a problem. Luckily, seeing him knock on his elbow would alert me to his true desires, avoiding a catastrophe.

As he started speaking more, I found myself relying less on the signs, and more on the context, and subtle differences in his speech. To some people, it just sounds like a bunch of vowels and guttural caveman speech, but now I can clearly differentiate between “apple”, “turtle”, and “love you”, something I would have thought impossible not too long ago.

Now, spending every waking minute with him, I’ve got the Rosetta Stone. While everyone else is smiling and nodding at him like he just asked “d’ya like dags?” I’m right behind him with the cup of water and monster truck he clearly asked for. At nineteen months, he’s reciting the alphabet, counting to ten, and correctly naming colors, all because of a lucky $2 DVD selection.

I can’t say enough good things about the Baby Signing Time program. For more information, visit the following sites:

Signing Time Academy



ASL Reference

And for the Boston area: Little Laughing Hands