Sign Language in Mandarin

As crazy as it might seem, I am woking on learning how to use basic sign language and also the mandarin words for each. I have a My First Signs baby book with basic english words and I searched the intranet net for the mandarin pronoucation. I know the tones make one word mean several different things, so I am trying to memorize the pitches. It is without a doubt a hard thing to do. I thought if I could learn some basic words that possibly I could communicate with our little one, somewhat. We will see.