I Love You

Now that Errol’s almost two (Saturday, March 8) we’re working hard on signing with him. This week we’ve been working on the learning the three best words in the English language.

The sign for “I Love You” is simple. You point to yourself: I. Then you fold your arms together across your chest: love. Then you point at the object of your love: you.

Errol loves it when we tell him we love him. (We say it a lot – we mean it a lot.)
He grins his wide grin and shrieks with joy. After we’d been working on “I love you” for a while, I noticed that Errol was pointing his little finger up in the air (sort of like Errol’s famous “number one baby” sign, if you remember those days). At first, I didn’t think much of Errol’s pointing, but soon I realized that just about every time we told him we loved him, he was pointing right back at us.

After a few days of pointing, Errol went a step farther in responding to our signing by not only pointing, but also by crossing himself (not Catholic crossing – he’s Buddhist – love, crossing). We couldn’t believe it. But he really did point and cross (and I swear I even heard him saying “IIIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiIII”). The next day, I told his absolutely astounding teacher, Karen, the good news. I finished the story by saying that, of course, sometimes parents hear and see what they want to see. But as quick as a wink, Karen replied, “And sometimes they hear what their child is saying!” And she’s right. Give the little man his propers!

Errol doesn’t perform on command, and he’s been known to backslide a little, so don’t expect a show the next time you see him. But if you’re lucky, if you tell Errol you love him, and you watch carefully, you might just get the sweetest pointing and crossing in the whole wide world.