New Sign for OWIE

I think that John is acquiring a new sign: for owie/pain/injury. The remarkable thing is that I just began using this sign yesterday. The idea is that this is an important sign so that the baby can show you where he hurts if he injured himself out of parents' eyesight or has an internal pain, like a headache. Since yesterday, when I'd witness John hurt himself, I'd quickly begin making the sign for PAIN right next to where he bonked his head or whatever while verbalizing, "Did you hurt yourself on your head? You have an owie!"

Three times today I saw John make his version of the sign. First was when we were in the nursery where I had my back to John because I was hanging up his clothing. I heard a bang and John begin crying. By the time I whirled around, John was crying and making the sign in front of his head. Then in the afternoon, John began making the sign on one of his thumbs. I thought he was doing it all wrong because he wasn't crying and I couldn't see anything. Then I saw a tiny paper cut! I was amazed and offered to kiss it. John let me kiss it and laughed. Then he made the sign on his other thumb and now I was sure he was just playing to get another kiss. But then I inspected the other thumb and it had a much bigger paper cut on it! So I kissed that one too. Then I remembered an hour earlier when I was letting John tear up a catalog and he burst into tears for no apparent reason: I think that is when he obtained his paper cuts.

All I can say is that sign language for toddlers is so cool!