Signs for the week!

Look at this cute boy!!! His favorite things in life are simple. Firetrucks, and all things fire-related (hopefully, not fire itself), trucks, trains, tractors, and all things BOY, Curious George, popcorn, popsicles, cooking in the kitchen, especially when he can help cut things up (with his own special plastic knife) or crack eggs, which he's pretty skilled at, and Ryan Price's new piano CD. He loves it!
But if you know and love Justus, you know that his words are few. So we have a newfound resolve to sign 100% of the time with Justus. We are, of course, still keeping with his speech therapy and encouraging him in speech development! This in no way takes away from that. It actually enhances it. He more likely will attain a word if he uses the sign. But this sweet boy deserves some language and an ability to really communicate all that's going on in that head of his. Thankfully, because I am fluent in sign language, we can do this! So for those of you who want to learn some of Justus' signs, here's a short list of some words to start with and a website to go to. The website is www.lifeprint.com It doesn't require a subscription, like some others, and has a pretty good dictionary to access ASL. (Remember, only look at American Sign Language. We do not use Signed English. Yes, there's a difference.) Here are some Justus-related signs.

Yes
No
Finished (All done, or can be used for 'May I be excused' from the table.)
Truck
Train
Book
Eat
Drink
Popcorn
Candy
Sleep (night-night)
Please
Stop
Red
Orange
Blue

That should be a good start. Tell me how it goes, and come practice on Justus anytime. Of course, Justus can understand everything you say, but he needs these signs to talk to us, so using them with him really helps him learn to communicate in sign. He's a lot more likely to use them all the time if we do. Pretty soon, we're going to see just how brilliant our little brown bear is! He's going to have the ability to really communicate. I can't wait for that!!! We covet your prayers for him, and his language development!