Brayden,
After lunch today, you and I sat down to learn more signs. I'm pretty sure you know all of the signs I know, so now when I teach you, we resort to websites like Signing Savvy or Life Print. Today, I wanted to teach you your colors, and more animals. We learned these words: black, brown, blue, gray, green, orange, pink, red, white, yellow, light, dark, color, outside, kangaroo, deer, bee, chipmunk, dinosaur, spider, and zebra. You also learned share, quiet, no more, later, want, where, and after. You didn't know what a kangaroo was, so I youtube'd it and you were smitten. You love them now. It probably has to do with the fact that the youtube video I showed you involved 2 kangaroos fighting...and boy, do you love fighting!
We were on the Signing Savvy website to learn most of today's signs. They have videos to show you each individual sign. You were sitting next to me on the couch and I showed you a video for a sign you had never seen before. I said "Brayden, what is that the sign for?" and you said "I dunno...oh, Spider!" This wasn't me showing you the sign, it wasn't a sign you were familiar with...but a brand new sign that you were seeing in small 2D on the computer. It is a pretty intuitive sign, but the fact that you can connect these things in your head at such an early age blows me away.
After we went through these signs, I quizzed you. We had only gone through them once, but I wanted to test you anyway. I asked you "how do you sign 'outside'?" and you responded correctly. "How do you sign 'quiet'?" And you responded correctly. "How do you sign 'no more'?" In which you signed the individual signs for "no" and "more." I corrected you, then when I tested you later, you got it right. When I asked you how to sign your colors, you knew... How does your brain learn all these so quickly? We only went over them once, yet you remembered over 20 signs. I am boggled by how competent you are when it comes to signing.
I hope this is something that we can keep up with. I hope you always are this driven to learn. You soak up this information as if it were chocolate. Quick story: We were doing a video chat with Uncle Rick the other day. You were showing him that you knew how to finger spell the alphabet. Uncle Rick wanted to see if he could still remember it, so he tried it. He did "B" wrong, and you said "no, it's like this..." and showed him. Then he continued and he said "Is this right?" and you said "Yup!" When he was trying to sign "r" he signed "x". You said, "No, that's 'x'. This is 'r'." and showed him the correct sign. You were so patient with him while you made sure he knew every letter correctly.
As I just mentioned, I hope you continue to love learning this much. You are such a bright boy, I just hope that as your mother, I can teach you the most important things, that will be of value to you in your life. I realize that what you're learning now will be the foundation for your life. I only pray that I can give you the proper materials to make that foundation solid...and hopefully we can make our relationship solid in the process.
I love you Brayden Kyle!
Love, Mommy
