My son began signing "milk" a week or so ago. He usually signs milk as a response to me forming the question: "milk?" right before nursing time, though he has initiated the subject a few times before I got around to asking him.

The past few days I’ve been trying to see if he would sign "milk" without me mentioning the word to see if he was actually understanding what I was saying (instead of just copying a routine I’ve been doing with him the past 4 months) – for instance, if I said, "Are you hungry?" (instead of asking "milk?"), I wanted to see if he’d sign "milk".

Well, today, it was time for him to nurse, so I held him in my arms and said, "Are you hungry? Hungry? Do you want to eat?" and he smiled and signed "milk". Yay! I did the happy dance and went to nurse him.

So…when my husband came home from work (and it was time to nurse my son again) I wanted to show him this new accomplishment and said, "come here, I want to show you something".

So, I sat my son on the edge of our bed facing him toward us and began the conversation:

Me: "Are you hungry?"

Son: blank stare

Me: "Hungry? Would you like to eat?"

Son: Looks at Daddy, looks back at me…still staring…blankly

Hmmmm…it wasn’t working. I tried explaining to my husband what I was doing…

Me (looking at my husband): "I was just trying to see if he would sign without me saying the word "milk" – whoops!"

The word slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

Then out of the corner of my eye I see my son smiling and enthusiastically signing milk – little booger.