Signing

I recently decided to teach Savannah a few baby signs. She doesn't have many words, and while she's fairly good at communicating through pointing and gesturing, I started to notice that she was getting frustrated sometimes when I wasn't able to figure out what she wanted and she was acting out with throwing/hitting. For example, if she was full and started to cry at a meal but I misunderstood and put more on her tray, she would angrily hit her tray and throw the food.
About a week or so ago I began to introduce four basic signs: milk, eat, more, and all done. The first sign she picked up on was milk. When I got her up in the morning or from a nap, she would start signing for milk as I was changing her diaper. One afternoon I decided to try and catch it on camera. She was signing milk during her diaper change, so I took her to her high chair, pulled out my camera, and tried to get her to do it again. This was all I got:

I gave up and went to pour the milk into her cup. As I was filling her cup, I looked over and the little stinker was signing milk again! So I grabbed my camera one more time and tried to get her to do the sign while I held her mik cup out for her. And she did this:

Oh well! Maybe some day I'll get it on camera. Milk is still the only sign she's really picked up on, although sometimes when she wants more I've noticed her clapping. I've also noticed her clapping when we're playing upstairs and she's getting hungry, so I think she may be trying to sign more. She's also imitated the sign for eat, but hasn't done it on her own. I mostly want to encourage her verbal skills, but maybe signing a bit will reduce her frustration in the meantime!