Here is a little history of our You Tube videos before I jump into our Signing Time experience.

When my daughter, Fireese, was 11 months old we took my mother on a vacation to the Bahamas to celebrate her retirement.  On the airplane Fireese and I sat beside this lovely couple.  Fireese was signing milk, crackers, more, please, eat and the woman was amazed to see a little baby signing. She said, “I heard about baby sign language but I didn’t think it was possible until now.” During our time at the resort she kept bringing over people to see the ‘signing baby’.  I thought, if Fireese and I are getting this kind of attention here, maybe there were other people who would be interested in seeing signing in action. 

When I got home from our trip I decided to make a video of Fireese signing and post it on You Tube.  I was not very technically savvy and it was a little intimidating-shooting and posting a video but I really wanted to get the word out there on the benefits of signing with babies.

I remember watching the numbers of the video climb. It didn’t take long to get to 5,000 views, then 10,000 then 15,000. When the number hit 20,000 my husband took me out for dinner and we thought how amazing it was that 20,000 people had viewed our video.  Now, almost a year and a half later the video has over 350,000 views! Posting the video and the ones that followed has started me on an amazing journey that has allowed me to connect with people all over the world.  I have met professors who teach child development courses in Australia and the UK who asked for permission to use Fireese’s video in their classes.  Baby signing teachers in Taiwan, China, Germany and Denmark who are trying to bring baby signing to their countries wanted to show Fireese’s video to support their cause.  I have been given the opportunity to lecture at universities, teacher education programs and ECE classes on the topic of using sign language to promote literacy. Media outlets have contracted me for interviews and I have met new moms who are excited to start signing with their child.  High school and university students who are doing projects on baby signing have contacted me for advice and encouragement. I welcome everyone’s emails and am always happy to answer questions on signing with children.

After posting some follow up videos of Fireese, I paused, thinking people would not be interested in seeing a talking toddler.  In the next few months I received hundreds of emails from people asking for a Fireese update-“what is she doing now”?  So I shot another clip.  I really want people to see the benefits baby signing has with children.  Some people are afraid that it will delay speech however, I’ve done a lot of research on the topic and all of the studies have shown that signing accelerates language.  You can clearly see this through Fireese’s development.  When she was one she had a combined talking and signing vocabulary of 50 words. At fourteen months she was talking in two words sentences and at 15 months in three word sentences.  She knew her alphabet from start to finish at 15 months and could sign all the letters in the alphabet at two.  Just before she turned two and a half she started reading three and four letter words.  I hope everyone has enjoyed observing the development of a signing baby into a happy, healthy, chatty child who loves words and reading! 

This leads me to our newest experience, being invited by Rachel Coleman to be a part of a Baby Signing Time taping.  Signing Time had put out a call for auditions and as a result of this call I received over 100 emails from people saying I should audition Fireese.  Life was crazy busy for us during this time and we missed the deadline for auditioning. However, shortly thereafter, Rachel herself called and said that she had seen Fireese on You Tube. She told me that Fireese is “the most famous signing baby on the internet”. Because of this, she wanted my daughter to come and sign in the newest Baby Signing Time video. In addition, Signing Time wanted to do a special feature on the two of us.  My next post will chronicle this adventure.