For the past couple of months we've been teaching Ethan sign language and I'm telling you, it's THE coolest thing I've ever seen in child development. Our friend Heather, who is an interpreter, tought us a few signs to start with and recently she let us borrow her Signing Time DVDs. It started off with "more" and "all done", which is pretty much a complete life saver for any parent. Now he knows:
Milk
Water
Diaper
Ball
Shoes
Hungry/Food
Tired
All done
More
Sleep
Ouch/Hurt
Please
Thank You

Today it really hit me on how cool this is. I took him for a mountain bike ride early this morning (I pull him in a bike trailer). As I was climbing this hill I hear him say "Daddy", I look back and he gives me the sign for "water". I stop and notice that he couldn't reach his water bottle, so I got it for him. I got back on the bike and thought about how powerful that just was. Instead of throwing a total fit, screaming and crying and me not having a freakin clue why, he simple tells me what he wants and I get it for him. End of story. I've heard that kids who learn this early on are much more mild-tempered and I can totally see why. I highly recommend this to any parent with an infant.