The Joy of Words
To my delight, LB seems to be an early talker. He started talking at 10 1/2 months with 'gat' (cat) and is just on the cusp of one of the language explosions - the one where they start putting two words together. So far, we've had 'spoon gone', 'shoe gone' and, heartbreakingly, 'mummah gone'. I was at work, cruel, heartless, unnatural mother, missing these precious moments of my child's development. No, I reframe that, providing him with language opportunities. Had I not been absent, he'd not have had occasion to utter that.
A couple of weeks ago I started a list of the words he was using reliably, because I was aware that soon it won't be possible to count them. I counted ones he produces unprompted, not ones he repeats back to you if you say them. Most of them are not comprehensible to any but the parental or fraternal ear.
Bye (or bye-bye)
Hello
Hiya
Eat (hard to distinguish from 'teeth' since both often resemble repeated 'teeteeteetee', unless he also signs - see below)
Teeth (also means 'give me my toothbrush to chew on')
Cake
Cheese
Banana (actually 'narna', which means 'fruit, also including tomatoes, further including salsa')
Bang
Grrrrr! (a roar)
Eeek, eek (a mouse)
Ding dong
Shhh! (always with accompanying finger to lips)
Clink (wine glasses clinking in a toast)
Up
Up high
Up above the (as in 'Twinkle, twinkle', sung to the tune)
Dog (sometimes doggie. We blame nursery)
Cat (actually gat)
Garden
Grandad
[PB]
Mummah
Dadda
Nana
Baba [PB's lovey]
Teddy
Shoes
Hat
Drink (actually 'gink')
Balloon
Bubbles
More
Book
Gone
Car
Bath
Downstairs
Ball
Slide
Cup
Spoon
He also uses sign a bit, despite us being a bit rubbish at signing to him. We tried much harder with PB, but he never signed anything but 'breastmilk'. LB does:
Breastmilk (of course)
[PB] (our sign version of his name, which is the letter of his initial twice)
Book
Shhh! (finger to lips, always at the same time as the sound)
More
Where? (He's only started doing this one quite recently, and it's made it clear that what we had previously taken to be aimless wandering around the room is often purposeful searching for something. He rarely says or signs what it is he's looking for though, even when it turns out to be something he does know the word for, suggesting that he hasn't quite got the two word thing yet. It's exceptionally cute him looking behind the armchair signing 'where?' and looking at you enquiringly, though)
Eat
Medicine (strictly non-canonical. The proper sign is like a pestle and mortar, but LB made up one which is a medicine syringe going into his mouth)
Gently
Twinkle (not sure if this is proper sign or just popularly received actions to 'Twinkle Twinkle')
Hat
It's really interesting seeing which words he signs but doesn't say and the ones he has both word and sign for. He generally both signs and says 'book', 'more' and 'eat'. He's produced one bilingual pseudo-sentence 'Mummah breastmilk' - it'll be really interesting to see if he continues to do this. I so wish my sign were better. He loves signing - he grins with delight when he signs and we understand him, whereas he doesn't for words. I wonder why.
Everytime I was about to post this, he added another word or two. Eventually I have clocked that he's adding a word or two every day, so I've no hope of recording an accurate status quo. I'm a bit slow on the uptake at the moment - did I mention I'm a bit tired?
A couple of weeks ago I started a list of the words he was using reliably, because I was aware that soon it won't be possible to count them. I counted ones he produces unprompted, not ones he repeats back to you if you say them. Most of them are not comprehensible to any but the parental or fraternal ear.
Bye (or bye-bye)
Hello
Hiya
Eat (hard to distinguish from 'teeth' since both often resemble repeated 'teeteeteetee', unless he also signs - see below)
Teeth (also means 'give me my toothbrush to chew on')
Cake
Cheese
Banana (actually 'narna', which means 'fruit, also including tomatoes, further including salsa')
Bang
Grrrrr! (a roar)
Eeek, eek (a mouse)
Ding dong
Shhh! (always with accompanying finger to lips)
Clink (wine glasses clinking in a toast)
Up
Up high
Up above the (as in 'Twinkle, twinkle', sung to the tune)
Dog (sometimes doggie. We blame nursery)
Cat (actually gat)
Garden
Grandad
[PB]
Mummah
Dadda
Nana
Baba [PB's lovey]
Teddy
Shoes
Hat
Drink (actually 'gink')
Balloon
Bubbles
More
Book
Gone
Car
Bath
Downstairs
Ball
Slide
Cup
Spoon
He also uses sign a bit, despite us being a bit rubbish at signing to him. We tried much harder with PB, but he never signed anything but 'breastmilk'. LB does:
Breastmilk (of course)
[PB] (our sign version of his name, which is the letter of his initial twice)
Book
Shhh! (finger to lips, always at the same time as the sound)
More
Where? (He's only started doing this one quite recently, and it's made it clear that what we had previously taken to be aimless wandering around the room is often purposeful searching for something. He rarely says or signs what it is he's looking for though, even when it turns out to be something he does know the word for, suggesting that he hasn't quite got the two word thing yet. It's exceptionally cute him looking behind the armchair signing 'where?' and looking at you enquiringly, though)
Eat
Medicine (strictly non-canonical. The proper sign is like a pestle and mortar, but LB made up one which is a medicine syringe going into his mouth)
Gently
Twinkle (not sure if this is proper sign or just popularly received actions to 'Twinkle Twinkle')
Hat
It's really interesting seeing which words he signs but doesn't say and the ones he has both word and sign for. He generally both signs and says 'book', 'more' and 'eat'. He's produced one bilingual pseudo-sentence 'Mummah breastmilk' - it'll be really interesting to see if he continues to do this. I so wish my sign were better. He loves signing - he grins with delight when he signs and we understand him, whereas he doesn't for words. I wonder why.
Everytime I was about to post this, he added another word or two. Eventually I have clocked that he's adding a word or two every day, so I've no hope of recording an accurate status quo. I'm a bit slow on the uptake at the moment - did I mention I'm a bit tired?