Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Day 28 - Shopping and signing

(Monday August 16th)

J-cub and I went on a much-needed trip to Tesco today. We've been home for a whole week and managed not to do any food shopping at all, so the cupboards were quite literally bare. I had a massive shopping list and a very tired baby, but no other time to do it so we didn't have much choice.

Despite his tiredness, J-cub was a little angel. On arrival, we walked from the car to the front of the store to get a trolley. J-cub walked next to me, holding my hand. He's never done that before, he thinks hand-holding is the devil's work and usually refuses point blank or tries to pull his arm off. Today, after a little squeal, he accepted I wasn't going to change my mind and he walked happily along. It was all hot and sunny, and loads of people were smiling and cooing at him. And I must admit, he was quite the little cool dude:

He put up with sitting in the trolley for nearly an hour, he only threw a few things on the floor, and he happily chewed on a bag of frozen peas when his gums got too much to bear.

My Proudest Mummy Moment Ever came when we got to the checkout, I pushed the trolley up next to the conveyor belt, and started unloading. J-cub turned around, saw what I was doing, and started helping. Seriously. He took all the items he could reach and carefully placed them on the conveyor belt. Except for the baby spinach, which he threw on the floor. I also rescued the eggs from his grasp, just in case. But other than that, he was amazing! He got a yummy and very un-baby-friendly jam-filled Welsh cake for his troubles.

When we'd put all the shopping back in the car, we returned the trolley and walked up to Boots to get some bits and bobs. Again, he walked along, holding my hand. We encountered two small dogs, and J-cub barked at them. Really. His animal noises now include monkey ('Eeee-eeee-eeee'), cat ('eooooow'), snake ('sssssss') and dog ('oooo oooo'). He had a mini-meltdown in Boots but quickly fell asleep when we got back in the car.

Later on, when Jamie was home, we played our new favourite game of Google image search. This involves one parent sitting where they can't see the laptop, while the other searches for ducks, or monkeys, or fish, or whatever. And the other parent has to guess what it is from J-cub's signs/sounds.

Previously, he'd done monkey.

Tonight, he signed giraffe, fish, crab, lion, apple, baby, nappy and milk, and made sounds for dog, cat, snake and monkey, and said 'Duck'. At the end of the game, the buzzer sounded indicating his milk was warmed. He picked up a cushion, lay down on the floor with it and signed 'milk'.

I'm so so happy we've stuck with the baby signing, it's amazing to be able to communicate with him all of a sudden.

5 comments:

Isadori said...

I love signing too! Although I'm pretty sure people think I'm crazy having a conversation with a non-speaking baby!

Beth said...

Not crazy at all! I forgot to mention that J-cub also did his first 3 word sentence - I'd been having a coffee and a biscuit and I thought he might get jealous so I put a baby biscotti on the arm of the sofa in case he attacked me in a biscuit-fuelled rage. He didn't, but he found the biscotti later and devoured it. Then he came back, looked at the empty arm of the sofa and signed "biscuit, where, no?". How amazing is that?

Isadori said...

Wow! A biscuit-motivated genius!

Heartful said...

Bless him!!!!! Jake now insists on pushing the basket around for me whenever we are in Sainsbury's. Never mind that the basket has no wheels...most people are kind and think he's sweet. The other day, he helped me unload the basket and then completely of his own accord picked the empty basket up and put it in the pile of baskets next to the checkout. I was so proud!

Beth said...

That's brilliant Tammy, I love it that they're naturally so keen to help like this. Jacob has now started putting his change mat away when I've changed him, and shouting at me if I leave the wipes out ;)

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