els and roro

little m has a pseudo big sister in elodie, our friends' 4 year old daughter. i've been meaning to post this short clip forever (it's about a minute), because it warms the very cockles of my heart (whatever that means). when our friends and their kids first found out little m (or as elodie calls her, roro) is deaf, they started doing the i love you asl sign all the time. i swear i would almost start crying every time we hung out with elodie's fam; without fail little miss elodie would come marching up to little m, and very purposefully stick her tiny 'i love you' sign 2 inches from m's face. it was such an expression of pure love to me, void of the emotional complexities i felt or the grief i was experiencing. somehow elodie gave matt and i such a gift in her exuberant love for little m. 

every single time we see her, same exact thing - "i love you roro!" and then the i love you sign.  i took this video maybe 6 months ago now, and i love how she tries to teach m to make the sign herself. my personal favorite is maybe 25 seconds in, when she shows the difference between using your hand to sign i love you and spiderman, and says, "this is spiderman but this is i love you." priceless.

she just adores little m, and is always learning new signs to try with her. (i don't think it even crosses her mind that m has no idea what she is doing when she sticks her fingers in her face; to elodie, little m knows perfectly well that she is saying that she loves her.)