Michael made some strides in his communication today. At dinner, I asked him if he wanted "more" raisins and made the "more" sign (we've been trying to teach him simple sign language for probably close to a year now, though not very consistently), and he made the sign for the first time. So naturally, I gave him more and lavished praise upon him, and he threw the raisins on the ground, then made the "more" sign again. I took him out of his high chair and he walked around the kitchen making the "more" sign.
I'll retell these in order of ascending impressiveness. Michael later waved "bye bye" to Daddy while we Skyped with him from Wisconsin. Ben left the screen for a minute and Michael waved "bye bye" without imitating me (i.e. I didn't wave). I thought it might be a fluke, given recent history. But then he waved "bye bye" to Daddy before we hung up, and when we said "good bye" to Momo before going to sleep, he waved to her, too.
Here's the biggie, which I didn't even get to witness. Momo was watching Michael while I was in the shower, and they were listening to music on Youtube (Michael likes "Barbara Ann"* and "My Girl") while Kirby, our extremely old parakeet, started chirping and fluttering his wings next to them. Michael turned to Kirby and said "Kirry." He already knew Kirby's name because if Momo asks him where Kirby is, he'll run over to the cage to look at him. But this is the first time he's said it, and the first word he's actually said** that I can't chalk up to simply imitating us ("cheez!"), because he said "Kirry" without any prompting from Momo.
* Apparently, Michael was standing at the bottom of the stairs crying for me while I was in the shower, so Momo said to him "Come on Michael, let's go listen to Barbara Ann" and he quieted down, walked over to the computer, settled on her lap and sat there with a little grin on his face while he listened to the Beach Boys. He apparently appreciates their tight harmonies.
** Although, come to think of it, yesterday he did drag me to the door and said something that sounded like "outside! outside!" to me. (It came out like "ow sigh! ow sigh!") I didn't make much of it because it was kind of ambiguous whether he was just babbling or actually communicating -- but there is a good chance those are his actual first meaningful words. I'll feel more confident if he repeats it.
