When Can I Proclaim "Genius in the Hiz-ouse?!"

No, I'm not talking about my husband, Genius #1. I am talking about Ham, formerly Peanut, presently One-Who-Amazes-Us-Daily.

Every mom thinks their child is a genius, I know, I know. I'm no different than the biased mom who thinks that a child who can count to three is a prodigy, even when they find them with half a roach hanging out of their mouths. (They know good protein when they see it!) LOL

Everyone that is close to us knows we teach Ham American Sign-Language. She has a sign vocabulary of about 20 words and can also speak several different words. I've said that before. So, to reiterated, we know that signing is not hindering her speech as some studies and sceptics say. However, I tend to forget that not all children are taught signs and that it's still kind of rare. However, for us, it has become a way of life. Not to say that we aren't still enthralled with our little baby girl, but her communicating her needs and wants with us has become second-nature and I forget that some people will think it's weird or cool that she can sign, "More fish crackers, please."

For instance, we have an uncle, Fun Uncle Anthony, that still makes jokes about her and asks her, "Hey, can you sign, 'I want to eat my head'?" He's hysterical. At his house this past weekend, he was routinely making fun of us for teaching Ham all these things and making her a 'freak' and his little baby boy (who is 6 weeks older than Ham) did a sign. I said, "Look, look! See, he can sign!" Uncle Anthony (kidding, of course) mockingly said, "Yeah...'chicken'. Great." We just all started laughing.

However, we are surprised when Ham takes the initiative in learning new things or pointing out things we have not taught her. Here is a twist-tie that she picked up yesterday while Hubby and I were talking:

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but to me, it's a twist-tie. And when Ham had it in her little hand and started to put it in her mouth, I said, "Whatcha got there?" She immediately, without hesitation, signed "fish." I took the twist-tie from her, and saw what you now see in this picture above.

OK. I mean, I know it looks like a little fish, but...HOW does a 13 month-old put that together? They really are smarter than we think.

GENIUS!

Next, we're setting up ink-blot tests. LOL

NOTE: For those of you concerned that Hubby and I may be forcing this stuff on our precious child, please be aware that Ham walks up to us and signs "Baby video" when she wants to watch the sign language video we rented from the library and she gets giddy when we understand what she is trying to communicate. She's a girl. She wants to be heard. :)