It's Just a Phrase

Life in Toddlerland is quite a bit different from parenting a baby. Of course there are the ubiquitous battle of wills and the "I can do it" moments. To offset these, there seem to be fewer recognizable milestones. It's not exactly about firsts anymore. First words, steps, foods, etc. are things of the past. Who records "first jump" or "first mean face" in the baby book anyway? But there really are fantastic new moments happening all the time. We just don't realize what she's doing, or we assume that she's been doing that thing for a while and we just hadn't seen it. (A lot of things she picks up these days S and I tend to look at each other and say, "She must have got that from daycare")

Anyway, I do want to go on record here to say that R has been saying plenty of phrases lately. I don't know if I'd count them as sentences yet, but she's really getting across a lot more ideas by putting different sounds together. Some examples of what she said today:

coat on
daddy go
mommy sleeping
Stop it!

While giving her a bath tonight, S was chewing on some gum. Lately, R has been chewing her tongue a lot from teething, making it seem like she has something in her mouth (other than food). When she noticed her mommy's gum, she became interested and started saying "open mouth. Ahhh." A near perfect immitation of me asking her to open her mouth and say ahh when looking for lint or old food picked up off the floor.

Even when only using one word, she tends to be pretty good about making her meaning clear. "Downstairs" accompanied by pointing down and getting her face right in yours and nodding leaves little doubt that she wants to go downstairs. Pulling your arm and then patting at a particular spot on the floor while saying only "sit" gets its meaning across too. I even heard a story from her daycare teacher that she repeated instructions to a friend to "walk away" while pulling her along behind her. She repeated it for us later that day too. "N, walk away. N, walk away."

As you see from examples, she is very comfortable giving commands. Not only do we have a great communicator on our hands, but a budding future dictator.

Words, words, and more words

R is at the point where she will repeat a word even after only hearing it once. We've been having tons of fun asking her to say names of different family members and she is learning what feels like hundreds of new words (and signs!) every day. I broke down and bought her Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever and we've had tons of fun talking through the pictures and pointing at things and saying what they are.

But.

The downside to this, of course, is that I can no longer say words that I don't want her to repeat. The other day I was getting her out of the car and trying to pick up a couple of bags and a blanket and my keys, all of which were hard to get while holding a squirmy R, and I said, "Crap, crap, crap" kind of under my breath. The next thing I know, she's saying, "Cap, cap!"

Oops.

She's also picking up words and pronunciations that J and I use around the house and aren't directly saying to her. For instance, I often call J from the other room-- Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaay-meeee. I'm not yelling, but I'm saying his name and stretching it out. Yesterday I was holding R and out of the blue she goes, "Jaaaaay-meee! Jaaaaaaaaaaay-meee!" exactly like I do when I'm calling for him.

She's also become very wily, using her words for all kinds of stalling purposes when she doesn't want to do something. For example, a month or so ago she suddenly decided that post-bath was the perfect time to have a snack, and she insists on it, so forcibly that it's not worth the struggle to try and put her to sleep without it, so just about every night we go downstairs and she has a few O's right before being laid down to bed. She now will say, "O's! O's! O's!" or "downstairs! downstairs! downstairs!" anytime she doesn't want to sleep. Or sometimes it's "diaper! diaper! diaper!" even if she doesn't need a diaper change or has just had one. Or "play! play! play!"

She's putting some phrases together but mostly it's still single words, or clusters of words-- like when she says potty, she almost always says poo-poo or pee-pee too, but not as a sentence. More like, "potty!" and then a little later, "poo-poo!" as if she's just remembered that word.

Buh-bulls

R loves bubbles.

She loves them in the bath.

She loves them when she washes her hands and sees bubbles in the sink.

She loves them when there are bubbles in a drink-- like soda or just water that has a bubble in it.

And, on the suggestion of my friend M, we bought R bubbles for her Christmas stocking. She loves them. She points to the container and says "buh-bull, buh-bull" whenever she notices it.

I haven't actually looked up the correct sign for bubbles yet, but R signs it like she is washing her hands, for what is probably an obvious reason. I should look up the correct sign, but so far we haven't had a lot of luck correcting some of her incorrect signs.

Time to update the dictionary

It's happening now. You know how people say they learn a new word or sign every day. Some days it seems like 2 or 3 words or signs. R's dictionary has grown and we're struggling to keep up. Here are the signs and words she's been saying in the last few days:

girl - sign
boy -sign
cereal - sign
thank you - sign

cheek
neck
elbow
knee
toes

hippo
squeak

color
black
blue
pink
purple
orange
yellow
(strangely, we've been having trouble with red and green)

we've been preparing for seeing family during the holidays with:
aunt
uncle

lots of others that I can't think of. We'll have to get more on video, but of course it's hard to get R to repeat what you want when you want it. Especially for company or cameras.