Please, Hold your Applause until the End.

LM can (finally!) clap! She started yesterday and she says, "ayyyyyyyyy!" while she does it.

I was beginning to wonder if she would ever clap. BigM started clapping at 6 months, which I know is really early, but when LM hadn't clapped at 9 months, then 10 months, I started to think maybe, just maybe, she just wasn't going to do it. Ever.

And if that weren't enough, she also signed "please" yesterday. Pop was sneaking her chocolate chip cookies and finally brought her to me and asked what she was doing when she was rubbing her shirt. I am a huge fan of baby signing- I did it with BigM and by 14 months, she was speaking in sentences and regularly signing over 30 words. I have been signing to LM since six months and finally, finally my looking ridiculous has paid off. She also signs juice (which looks a whole lot like her waving, though) and milk- although she signs milk at everything. She can also say juice and hi, but that's it. (Well, if you don't count screeching, "aahhh-aaaaa-ahhhhh," "eeeeeeeee" or "dadadadadadadadadadadadada"- which isn't and actual reference to her father, yet.)

Tonight when I was nursing her right before bed, I signed "milk" to her while saying it and she started frantically signing "please." It was very sweet and reminded me of one of my favorite memories from nursing BigM. She was almost 14 months and down to nursing in the morning only- she finished on one side and looked up at me with her eyes closed and very sleepily signed "more." It was so very dear and so very sweet.

I need to get out my ASL book and brush up on my old favorites- now that my baby is finally beginning to understand our language. She's no longer an alien!