My Baby Can Talk

I haven't been feeling well the last couple days. Seems like I picked up a little bug at day care. I have sniffles and a fever and feel pretty rotten. I've gotten some tasty purple medicine to make me feel better and lots of love from mom and dad. But the best medicine seems to be chilling out in front of the TV.

Mom and dad try not to let me watch very much TV. And there's no TV at day care. But when I'm sick and fussy, TV is very calming. It's the only thing that makes me forget about how lousy I feel. One might say television has sort of a numbing effect. That's me in the picture watching TV in my rocking chair with my friend Herman.

Recently, I started watching a new video called My Baby Can Talk: First Signs. It's supposed to teach me sign language. As the box says: "Babies are able to communicate at a much earlier age than they are able to speak." In other words, mom and dad can't understand what I'm saying to them, so they need to teach me these silly signs. I communicate just fine. It's mom and dad who should be watching videos on how to understand baby.

That being said, I like watching this sign language video. There's a nice lady who shows all the signs and explains what they mean. There's also a little baby who makes the signs too, but she sets the bar pretty low for the rest of us babies. Then there are lots of pictures of animals and food and more of that annoying baby music. I think mom and dad are hoping that if I watch the video enough, I'll start making signs when I'm hungry or tired rather than doing what they perceive as random crying.

The video teaches useful words like "eat," "drink" and "dinosaur." It shows the sign for "cat" which is nice, but I can already say "kih," thank you very much. My favorite sign is for the word "car," of course, because I love car rides. But the video leaves some things out that I really need to know how to say. Words like "poop," "TV" and "neglect." In fact, a video on semaphore would probably be much more useful. At least I could use flag signals for people outside my window to come and rescue me. Meanwhile, I'll keep watching my sign language video and see if I can get mom and dad to understand me. Getting them to do what I want will be another story.

~:O