Our family signs...not whines

So Alex is 13 months and fulling walking. He loves being so big and the bigs loving playing right along side him. Just today he was catching a medium sized ball that Charlie was tossing him. And frequently I find Kate talking to him like he is one of her friends as she kindly leads him around the house to play.
He is fighting off a small cold which could be why he has been whining more lately. Adam thinks he is just getting older and more determined. I keep saying to him...Alex, what do you want...signing an over-exaggerated "want" sign....and then stating firmly, " we are a signing family not a whining family" At times I get through to him and he will sign water, or food after started to fuss and cry. He knows many signs and the next phase in signing will be to teach him how to communicate his needs and wants by using those signs.
Just today at nap time while putting him to sleep he kept looking over at me with his deep brown eyes and signing bird. over and over again. With his little lower lip sticking out to help his sound effect of a bird flying. Every time I said, oh you are thinking about birds he got a huge grin across his face as if he was saying yes you get me.
About a week or two ago I showed him the baby sign. Once or maybe twice, in passing...and sure enough when Amy stepped into our house I said, Alex look at the baby, and he did the baby sign. it was so amazing...
These are his signs: airplane, baby, bird, tree, socks, shoes, milk, water, food, more, all done, pooping, diaper change, dog, cat, boy, girl, sleepy, book, horse, thank you, i love you, bath, hot, outside, banana, again
His signs are far from perfect. Someone who doesn't spend all day with him would notice that several look nearly the same...but i know the difference.
He also says, hi, bye, pa, mama, dada, ball, and tonight when I put dinner in front of him and told him it was hot he did the hot sign and said haaaa.
Time for me to learn more signs....love it!