More signs and sounds

We've been working with Oliver trying to teach him more signs so he can tell us more specifically what he wants. Thus far he has 'more' and 'please' down. We've been working on 'spin', 'cookie', 'drink' and 'thank you'. After we begin to repeat each sign with him non-stop he'll start to kind of figure it out. Usually when we know what he wants we'll ask him for example, "Do you want another cookie?" and after hearing the word he'll make the sign, but he rarely does it on his own without our cues. So he'll often come to us, sign 'more' and then he knows he usually gets something after that. The trick is to get him to be more specific and communicate that to us.

Also, Oliver has been learning lots about animals. He can make an elephant sound which cracks him up when I (dad) make the sound and move my arms like an elephant trunk. He also makes his version of a cat sound which is the softest little sound anyone could ever make. It's like the tiniest little grunt that sounds almost like a cat, but it's his version. Lastly, he's been saying mama again! He says it randomly for the most part but there have been a few times that it seems as if he is addressing Ciara by saying it, either way we are just happy to hear it. Happy Easter everyone. Just for fun I added some pics from a couple weeks ago when I put Oliver's shoes on over his pj onsie to play outside. He played with Ozzie's ball and Ozzie would chase him. It was lots of fun.

Memory Game

So several months ago I found a cool Toy Story memory game on my iPhone. Oliver was starting to get more interested in my phone so I thought he might enjoy seeing the characters. He liked it right away. It started with me holding his finger and I'd help him find all the matches. Eventually he started poking around and occasionally got a match (mostly by accident). Usually he'd get frustrated, grab my finger and make me find the matches. He at least recognized that the matched tiles were disappearing and he understood that that was good. Then about a month ago I gave him my phone (by this time he could easily navigate his way to the game to open it) and I noticed he wasn't grabbing my hand to help him. I also noticed that he had found a match. I started watching as he flips 2 tiles that don't match, then the next one he flipped he recognized that he had just seen its match, so he remembered where and got the match. Still I thought he was getting somewhat lucky. About 3 minutes and 15 seconds later he had solved the puzzle! Then he did it again and beat his record (2:45). He amazed us with his memory and has since then beat his time to close to 2 minutes. What an amazing boy. So smart like his mommy. I'm in search of other games that he'll enjoy while they challenge his mind. If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them. I just hope this doesn't translate to mindless texting in later years. But as for now he is our little professor.