Signed, sealed, delivered

As you can see, Henry's aunt Jess and uncle Tim unsuccessfully attempted to pack up and steal their favorite little nephew in the process of moving-prep this Tuesday. While I'm sure they would take good care of him, it's probably best that Henry and his bumbo seat went home with me instead of boxed up into Jess and Tim's new place.

The packing fun and photo shenanigans took place on Tuesday, when Henry and I enjoyed a very nice visit and lunch with the newlyweds, plus Henry's grandmother and great-grandmother. We spent some time eating out in Northampton after the others packed a bit (let's face it, I'm pretty useless when Henry's around), and then Henry got spoiled by his female relatives. We went into a toy store and Henry picked out his favorite items by responding with lots of smiles and some shrieks of excitement when I held up the ones he liked best. I hadn't tried this with Henry before, since he has plenty of toys; but, I might be tempted to take him toy shopping more, since it was so fun seeing what he reacted to most strongly. He definitely has preferences at this point. On Tuesday his strongest preference was for a little monkey, banana and all. I guess his fruit preferences have transferred to his stuffed toy preferences.

Another fun activity this week was the baby signing class that Henry and I attended today. While he's still a little young to start making the signs himself--this typically begins around the age of eight months--now is a great time for Henry's caregivers (ie. me and Brian) to start reinforcing the hand signs along with verbalizations for specific words. My main interest in the signing is to help Henry be able to communicate when he's hungry, full, or sleepy. And likewise to convey to him when it's time to eat or go to sleep. We learned a bunch of other signs as well, and I hope to be consistent in using them. As our instructor pointed out today, the use of signing in babies is associated with higher IQ scores, more rapid acquisition of verbal language (contrary to what one might assume), and larger vocabulary than non-signing children lasting through age three. Seems worth a shot.

Tonight when Brian and I ate dinner, we placed Henry in his high chair and let him play with a sippy cup. He seemed to really like using the cup, which is interesting since he shows very little desire to use either a bottle or a pacifier. Maybe it was related to the fact that he was in his high chair, and he clearly understands that when he's in the high chair he gets to put tasty things in his mouth (now including pureed pears).