Eli: Signs and communicating

We've been trying to get Eli to sign for "more" food (Tobey's first word). On any given night, at some point in Eli's Cheerios "course", we all end up signing and saying, "More, Eli? More?". Even Tobey gets into it. Eli usually stares back with a look of, "Hey, you guys are pretty funny. Now when am I gonna get that Cheerio?"

Finally this morning it seemed like he was signing for more. It was while Tobey was munching on Cheerios in the clinic lab waiting area and Eli looked at him excitedly and started putting his hands together. It was easy to miss and probably outsiders or non-parents would have thought we were "reading into things". But we take what we can get and it was close enough.

So speaking of reading into things, I kind of felt like in the absence of Tobey's constant chatter yesterday (since he was in Monterey with Tom), Eli was more chatty himself. He did more of his "ba ba's" and even added a grunting tone to them. A lady said how happy he seemed as he chatted away and I realized that maybe he was chatty because he could finally get a word in edgewise.