Signing Time came to Gavin's school! Rachel and her daughter Leah of the awesome PBS program Signing Time put on a show for all the kids last week. Their story is pretty amazing and inspiring. You should read about them on her website: SigningTime.com. Sara has been a fan of Rachel's blog since she started it. Now Rachel's made videos to teach babies how to sign. Some babies can start signing as  early as 5 months! Wouldn't it be great if your baby could actually tell you what he wants instead of just crying like every other baby on the planet? Crying is so outdated. It really is. By five months, if he's got adequate control over his hands, he ought to be communicating with them, right?

It was so funny to see Gavin just star struck, sitting in the front row, sheepishly showing off all the signs he's learned from Rachel and Leah. I think he didn't believe that they were really the same people we've been watching on TV for two and a half years. After the show, Gavin was too wonderstruck and bashful to get his picture taken with them. Signing Time has been a big part of his life. We started watching that show when he was about 18 months old and still not talking. He had been diagnosed at around 14 months with PDD/NOS, which is pretty much what they call autism until the kid gets that official diagnosis when he's 2. We found that we could get him to use his hands to signal three of his basic needs, like Drink, Eat and More. Signing Time was just such a great show through that time, and we all love the music. We always liked to watch it after bathtime, before bed. It's one of the rare kid shows that we actually look forward to watching because the songs are beautiful, not cartoony. Both Gavin and Garrett still love it and request it now more than ever, after seeing Rachel and Leah in person. We don't use as many signs anymore, but they both know a bunch when asked. Gavin started talking at about two and a half, and we've obviously been pushing the use of speech pretty hard.

Now that we have Bodie, it'll be fun to see if we can get him to communicate with us earlier in life through signing. We need to re-sharpen our own skills too. We've had all of the PBS episodes saved on the DVR, now we're going to get the baby series from her website and let the learning begin for Bodie. We already know the baby likes Rachel a lot. He was all smiles when she held him after the show. See him below with Rachel and Leah. (Bodie's in his Goo Goo Ga Ga outfit created by my wife, for one of the only modern design baby boutiques on the web: Snugfits, of course! The BabyLegs came from mom4life.com, another terrific momtrepreneur)

As always, Surfers Healing was awesome this year. It was huge turnout, bigger than ever! Gavin even had his own little fan club there to "Ooh and Aah" over him! It was an unforgettable day, especially since Sara was starting to go into labor with Bodie! We knew from the previous two births that she labors slowly and methodically, so we felt it best to spend the beginning stages of labor at the beach! It sure beats staring at the ceiling in a hospital room!

Gavin did pretty well this year. I was worried he would be scared, because he's been a little bit leery of things lately. We had a bad experience at the waterslide in town this summer. I spent ten minutes talking him into trying it with me, and he loved it! That is, until the very end when we flipped off the tube under the water. I felt pretty awful about that. He was only submerged for a second or two, but he got a nose full and came up screaming. I lost a little bit of his trust on that day, I think. When it came to surfing, though, he was prepared. We showed him lots of surfing videos and home movies of a younger Gavin surfing in prior years. He really loved it, but he wouldn't let his feet touch the board. The poor surfer had to hold him up the whole time!

It was a perfect day at the beach. Gavin's entourage included his Grammy and Papa Geno, Aunt Mollie, his school counselor, teacher and developmental therapist. All of these awesome, caring people got such a kick out of seeing Gavin's happy face while he rode the waves. We feel lucky that Gavin has so many people in his life that love him. It takes a village to raise a child, and Gavin's village is full of the best.

If you haven't seen the "tribute to Surfers Healing" video we made, you should go watch it. On our home page, click the "learn more" in the green box, and it'll take you to a page with the video. Or, here's the address:                          http://www.snugfits.com/Surfers-Healing.html