Consequently as he's toddled about and inevitably plopped to the ground I keep saying "Did the young prince fawwwll down?" in my best Thumper voice. Reuben seems unimpressed by my impression which I think is spot on.
He's also started doing a lot of signing. This is rewarding because Aaron and I have been signing to flat stares of seeming indifference for the last four months. It's rewarding to know it sunk in.
It's also great because we get a sneak peak at what is going on in the kid's head. He really likes the birds that come to our feeder. When they arrive he usually stops what he's doing and starts signing bird frantically and "whistling" to them. So I guess he's decided it is equally important to learn how to communicate with them as with us. I actually think he might spend more time "whistling" than speaking words.
Now when I say whistling I mean Reuben's adapted whistle. We whistled bird calls to attract birds out of the woods. Reuben started to try too and very cutely blew as best he could but to no avail. He changed tactics and now emits long high super-soprano shreaks instead. They are remarkable similar in sound to a whistle. So way to go Reuben. The Vienna Boy's choir awaits you.
I really need to get a picture/video of all this. This blog was supposed to motivate me but I've been really busy so I decided it'll have to come later and posted the picture I had on hand.
And what's that giant green thing he's happily leaning against? If you guessed a Giant Okra man from the Irmo Okra Strut you'd be right. Good Guess!
Here he is not smiling because he's trying to swallow a gigantic glob of fried Okra.
And here he is not smiling because he's in front of the scariest clown painting EVER.
Here's the close up. That's how it made me feel too.
See what I mean.
5 comments:
that's really cool; i didn't know you were interested in sign - are either you or aaron fluent or have you been learning just so you can teach reuben? i used to babysit a girl who signed before she could talk and it was really fun.
That is one scary clown! Ruben is getting so big and way to go on the signing. Bree signed until she was like 2.
I'd put my "fluency" slightly below Koko the Gorilla's.
he's a good man-boy that ruben. i'm so impressed that he's already such an excited birder.
b and i are tentatively planning our next trip to the bear river migratory bird refuge. mid october is peak fall migration time. i'm really excited about going up there. we'll probably see 50 different kinds of birds this time!
When I first read "signing" my brain translated "singing." Glad to hear he's catching onto that skill too. :0)
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