Clara's New Sign

Today Clara signed "Help" for the first time. It really surprised me actually, because I've only shown her that sign maybe 6 times and every time was very far apart. She's pretty quick for a just barely 14 month-old if this humble parent may say so (oh I can just hear the commentary now! : )

She was trying to get this bubble wand thing out of the tube and it was screwed on. So she brought it to me and >scene<

Clara: more
Me: more? More what? Its just the bubble thing.
Clara: mor--help
Me: Help?! You want help opening it? Ok!
Clara takes the toy, plays for one second, hands it back to me and I put the wand back in the tube and hand it back to her.
Clara: tries pulling the wand out, hands it to me; Help
Me: You need help!? OK!!! Practically unable to control my excitement, I unscrew the wand and hand the toy back to her.
Repeat lines a bunch of times
>scene<

Patrice is my witness. It all happened while we happened to be on a skype call. It was funny too because my mom was just asking me what signs she knew and if she knew help. I said no because its not really a motivating sign for her. She's more into looking at things and pointing them out to me, dog, baby, car, duck etc etc etc.

I guess she's moving on! Which is sorta good, because I'm kind of sick of saying, "No, that's not a dog, that's a giraffe. No, that's not a dog either that's a boy. No, there's no dog in here, that's a TV."

I'll have to get a clip of her doing some signs, but she doesn't really do them on queue. But she does know a bunch:
HELP! : )
Dog
baby
Potty
nap/bed
milk (which sometimes just means drink)
duck
bird (which both look a lot like milk to the undiscerning eye)
book
more
phone
Food/eat
bath
car
Hear (like, she'll point to her ear and then sign dog if she hears Frankie barking or something. Not all the time. but if there's a noise that she notices, she'll stop and point to her ear and I'll say something like, "Oh, what do you hear? do you hear the dog/car/duck/grandma/grandpa?"


We're working on a bunch more, but she has yet to discernibly sign them. Although, she's got one that could be either Dad, Grandpa or just man. I'm not sure. Its hard because she doesn't see men all that much, and she used the same sign for Gifford, so I think when she points to her forehead she just means "hey look! A man!"

Its a work in progress.