Baby Sign Book

My husband and I, with my younger son, are spending Christmas in Oklahoma with my daughter, her husband, and our two-year old granddaughter. Before leaving for the airport for our 2:30 pm flight I wanted to finish off a Christmas present from our younger son to our 8-month old granddaughter who would be visiting her other grandparents in Ohio this holiday. It is a cloth book titled Little Baby Signs. I had cut it out a few days before we were to leave, but literally sewed it and addressed the envelope to our other granddaughter 90 minutes before we left for the airport.

 

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Our 8-month old granddaughter is a bright, happy, healthy, crawling, standing, babbling, ball of fire but it touches my heart to see my older son and daughter-in-law also teaching her signs to communicate with others not so fortunate. My younger son Alex (now a 28-year-old man) is special needs so I wanted this sign book to be from him to his niece on her first Christmas. Growing up, "milk" and "more" were common signs for Alex.

"Mom", "Dad", "dog", and "cat" were common utterances that Alex could say and had no need to sign.

But "Help", "All done", "Water", and "Bye" were all signs our family was familiar with during Alex's growing years.

I dated the last page. I wish I had thought to sign the book from "Uncle Alex" but "Love" sprung from my fingertips before I thought of the uncle part. Poor planning on my part but then I was distracted because I was rushing to get it in the mail before we left. I hope it made it in time for Christmas day. We Skyped yesterday but there was such cacophony in both households that I forgot to ask if it had arrived. Oh well, neither the giver nor the recipient is aware of dates, so the detail of exactly when the book got there is of little consequence to them.

The lovely artwork in this book panel is by Joy Allen.

The panel was printed by elizabeth's studio and I purchased it from a vendor at a quilt show. I snagged the following image from fabric.com so I think it may still be available there.