“Home” from Hands4Learning
When my older son was just a baby, we took a long drive to Rochester, NY to visit my parents – our first long drive with a baby. It was slow going – stopping to nurse him, stopping to change him, stopping to calm him, stopping to nurse him and change him again (after all, it was a 330 mile trip). He finally fell asleep in the car, and was still asleep when we arrived fairly late at night.
So we brought Zeke inside the house in his car seat, allowing him to continue sleeping while grandma and grandpa could look at him and marvel over how he’d grown. Eventually, he woke up and was very disoriented. He looked around and began to cry.
Of course we provided (or tried to provide) every possible comfort – he responded to my signs with a strong shake of his head “no” when I offered milk, a diaper change, music, and asked if something was in pain. Suddenly Zeke put his fist gently to his cheek in what we had gotten to know as his approximated sign for “home.”
We were amazed. We tried to explain to this young baby where we were and and why we couldn’t go right home. We carried him around the house to orient him to his surroundings. We gave him lots of love, and soon enough he was ready to play with his grandparents for a while before going to bed.
“Home,” he had signed to us. Something very specific but very abstract given the circumstances. Home is probably your baby’s favorite place – his or her safe place; a place of comfort, peace, familiarity. Zeke was too young to talk – if he hadn’t had sign language, there’s no way he would have been able to tell us that he wanted to wake up at home. He couldn’t point to home like he could have pointed to a book, or the piano, or a toy.
This is just one of the many incredible communication moments we shared with our children – being able to sign to us in an otherwise difficult, confusing, overwhelming, emotional situation was a true gift.
Join us. Bring this gift to your family. Learn to sign with your baby at Baby Fingers. www.mybabyfingers.com.