Slowly but surely

Last weekend, I was feeding Adriana a bowl of Cheerios, and as she signed "more," she said "moh." I took me a moment to realize what had happened. Wondering if I was right, I fed her another bite, and then she did it again, combining the sign with the spoken words. I gleefully pointed it out to Brian and his dad who were sitting there at the table reading the newspaper. For the rest of the time we were down in South Pasadena, we would ask Adriana to say "more" and she would oblige.

I started thinking it was a coincidence that she had combined that noise with the sign for "more," though, because she was so willing to mimic us, and because she stopped using it in context and in combination with the sign. But then she screeched at me for more green beans the other night while I was cooking dinner, and I told her, "No screeching, please. If you need more food, I need you to say 'more please.'" I meant for her to sign the phrase, but she looked at me thoughtfully for a moment and slowly said, "moh."

***

Yesterday as I was pulling one load of clothes out of the dryer and moving another one in, Adriana ran into the bathroom, yelled "bye," and closed the door most of the way. She opened it, squealed, yelled "bye-bye" this time, and closed the door again. 

***

I count the steps up from our car (12) and then up to our apartment (16), as it somehow seems to keep Adriana focused on moving forward. This afternoon when we reached the front door, I finished counting and said, "And now we're home. Yay!"

"Yay!" she echoed.