Signing Time Swimsuit

Max got a present from his Grammy today -- a new swimming suit with built-in floats. He was excited by the present to start with, but he got even more excited when he noticed the Body Glove logo on the front of the suit. He started exclaiming, "Signing Time!" because he thought it was the hand logo from his Signing Time videos.

He carried the suit around for a long time exclaiming repeatedly over the Signing Time hand, then he wore it for a while, and he even ended up sleeping with it in the bed beside him that night. It was about the biggest thrill $15 can buy! (Thank you, Grammy!)

Here's a short clip of him with his beloved suit.

I also like this clip because it's a good sample of Max's speech. Notice the irregularities? Most of the time his speech has dropped consonants, so "Signing Time" becomes "High-ee Eye," for example. But then he pronounces "present" with a hard "p" sound...only the other sounds get jumbled up and it comes out "puh-nay." And his pronunciation of "Grammy" varies wildly.

The other thing that is irregular is his level of comprehension. Sometimes it's clear that everything clicks immediately and he knows exactly what we're saying...and other times there is a mysterious blankness. It's never entirely clear if that blankness is due to the fact that he simply doesn't have a way to answer the question, or if he really does lose track of the conversation now and then. He's very smart, and surprises us all the time with his memory and comprehension...but the random black holes appear often enough to always keep us guessing.

Finally, notice his echoing at the end of the clip? Where he talks WITH me? He doesn't do that as much any more, but he used to a lot. (Here he realized what I was doing and he brought an end to that game quickly enough -- the present was way too exciting for me to be fooling around like that!)