Parents, music, and sneezes

I assure you, nothing has happened to Silas' left arm. It's somewhere behind the Tibetan singing bowl he's carrying in this picture.

Right then, on to some of the other language things I've wanted to mention on the blog.

First up: mom and dad. These are two separate signs, obviously, but not in Silas' world. He uses the same sign (pointing to his forehead) for both of us, and for Patrick as well. For lack of a better word, we'll just call it his "parent" sign. What we've noticed him doing lately, however, is combine two different signs to differentiate between his mom and dad. He'll sign "parent" and "music" to indicate Drew, and "parent" and "milk" (go figure) to indicate me. He by no means does this all the time, but every now and then he will.

Another combo: Now that he's learned the sign for computer, he will sometime say "computer music" to indicate that he wants us to play music through the computer. And while we're on the subject of music, for a while now, he's signed music when he sees a violin or guitar or another instrument, but that's not surprising. What is, however, is that he's figured out that a musical score is also related to music, and so he will use this sign when he sees notes or musical notation as well. Huh. I don't think we taught him this, but he figured it out somehow.

One last thing for this post: He thinks it's the funniest thing when we sneeze and will try to copy the sound. Usually, it will come out sounding like "aaii-yaah" or "aa-taah." If we sneeze again, he'll just laugh.

And, your Saturday afternoon bonus shot: best buddies.