Atticus is suddenly picking up sign language at a rapid pace. A few weeks ago, his signs were pretty much limited to "milk," "cheese," and "all done." He had signed "bath" and "cracker" at one point or another, but it had been a while--largely my fault. I always forget to sign "bath," and I hadn't given him crackers in a while. (However, if it weren't for me he wouldn't be signing anything since Chris rarely signs anything to him.) Then about a week and a half ago he started signing "cat" and "ball," though I just figured out in the past few days that "ball" is what he is signing. He's putting his two index fingers together rather than cupping his hands together in the shape of a ball. But he knows what he means. He uses it to signify balls, as well as objects that are round like balls--eggs and two-dimensional circles.

In the last four days or so, maybe a bit longer than that, he has picked up "water," "food," "baby," "tree," and "bed." His eagerness has helped me to remember to sign things and to work on learning more and more signs myself.

Notes:

• I baked muffins on Sunday while Atticus was napping. When he awoke, I offered him one for his pm snack. He watched me take it out of a tupperware container sitting on the counter. Then later after he had had dinner and bathed, he pointed to the container, gesturing for another muffin. He devoured it.
• Atticus spent almost the entire day Sunday naked because he developed a bad diaper rash on Saturday. He loved it. Our one outing was to A to Z Baby, and we were there for over an hour and a half because Atticus was having such a blast trying out the various display toys. He slid down the bunk bed slide what seemed like a thousand times.
• Last night when I was trying to brush his teeth, he faked me out by pointing off in the distance as if asking me to identify something for him, but when I looked to where he was pointing, he made a mad dash for my closet and hid behind some hanging clothes.
• Not a day seems to go by that he doesn't gesture for me to turn on the stereo. He expresses his delight when I comply.