I haven't written about parenting Lorenzo in a while. I have figured that the first year musings and milestones would be fun to record, and that I would mainly log my thoughts and feelings about being with/playing with Lorenzo from now on.

I want to slip in this note about how Lorenzo's communication has been improving, however, because it's such a big deal that he can indicate to us what he's thinking and what he wants. For a while, he's been able to indicate what he wants by pointing. But we've also been following Joseph Garcia's book, Sign with Baby since he was about 6 months old. Lorenzo is now 14 months old and is starting to pick up signs rather quickly.

At first we worked on the sign for milk, since it's been the most common and necessary thing in his life up to now, and cat, since he loves chasing around our cat. He got the milk sign around 9 months I think and uses it for milk or for drink. He also can sign hot, which he learned because of our fireplace. He does those 2 signs frequently, but hasn't done cat yet -- cat seems like it might be a little difficult to do manually. Then yesterday, he surprised us, when I showed him the sign for more, for the first time and he did right away!

The reason I'm writing about this is because it's so exhilirating to see Lorenzo communicate with us. We've come a far way from trying to guess what his cries mean to having Lorenzo tell us what he wants. It's such a wonderful thing being a part of it all.