Don't forget Little L!

Little baby L is now 15 months old, and has decided that maybe it would be nice to communicate. He used to look at us like we were obnoxious circus trainers and he was the too-smart monkey we were trying to teach to do tricks. He's recently discovered that it's quite nice to be able to ask for milk and food, and later discovered the joy of telling me that he heard a dog barking and that he saw a bird. It's so fun to see the world opening up to him through signing.

When he was tiny, I would often have a strange deja vu sort of feeling, especially when J was home from school. L looks so much like J did, with his blond hair and bright blue eyes, that I felt like I was simultaneously in the present and time-traveling back 6 years to when J was my only baby. But as L has grown, his facial features and personality have differentiated themselves from his biggest brother's, so that time-spanning sensation has faded. It came back full force the other day, however, when L very thoughtfully made up the same sign for the same word that his big brother had invented 5 years earlier. And how funny that it was for "lotion!"

What really surprised me is how much he understands. On Saturday, while J was racing his Pinewood Derby car, I sat L in a high chair that happened to be in the building. He got bored and tried to climb out, so I buckled him in with the 3-point harness. Half an hour later, he strained to get out again, and I said, mostly for the benefit of the little fan club that had gathered around him, "You wanna get out, don't you? But you're strapped in!" I thought he might sign "out," but he looked at me, then looked down at the harness and began to pull on it, then looked at me again. "Hey, you know what I just said, don't you?!" and he gave me a big smile.