The Talker

Ever since Luke gave up his paci (except for sleep times and in the car), his communication skills have tripled. I say the words "communication skills" because he is not only repeating words that we say but he is using words to tell us what he wants. For instance, when he wants his juice, he says, "juice" - same for "milk", "eat", "water", "side" (aka-outside), "bicicpup" (aka-bicycle-when he wants to ride his cheap consignment radio flyer bicycle), "mow" (when he wants to use his mower outside), "out" or "up" (when he's ready to get out of his high chair, crib, or wants to be picked up) and "books" (when he's ready to read). Sometimes he's very specific about what he wants - for instance, he will say, "eat pizza" or like last night, he went to the refrigerator, pulled on the door and said "pudding". He's always been a fairly happy baby, but now that he can tell us what he wants, he seems even happier unless we don't do what he says pretty quickly, so that brings in another task - teaching him to wait when it's necessary or using our words to explain to him that yes, you want to eat pizza, but tonight we are eating chicken. :) And, yes, you can have your pudding, but only after you eat your dinner. The great thing is that most of the time, he calms down once he hears the step by step play back of what will happen and when he will get what he wants.

Some other favorite words that we hear a lot right now include - tractor, truck, box, Madi, Max, numi (when he's sleepy), shoes, pants, Silee (his buddy), papaw (he asks for his papaw all the time), choo-choo, moo, ball, bye-bye, no-no and so many more. Basically, he will repeat just about every word that we ask him to say.

Luke is using two word phrases quite a bit also. Some of the common ones include: "daddy mow", "I....(with various words like) slide, ride, saw, know, stinky," "daddy work", "all done", "I did it", "I ready", "eat....pasta, pizza, pudding, ice (for ice cream)" and "big truck....big stinky....big stick." The other day he said the numbers, "1-2-3" in a row....I couldn't believe he said them and then haven't been able to get him to say them again since that day. He will sometimes say, "two sticks" or "two rocks" - and, usually, he really does have two when he says this.

When I draw pictures of a circle, square, and triangle and ask him to point to one of them - he gets them correct about 90% of the time - the triangle is his favorite so he gets this one right every time. He says the same word when pointing to the triangle but it sounds nothing like triangle. I think he's attempting it though.

Overall, I'm super pleased with the amount of developmental growth that Luke has made this summer. He's talking all the time. He does better and better with his puzzles, nesting blocks, naming pictures in books, and identifying shapes and objects everyday. Just one more reason why I'm dreading my return to work. He seems to do something new everyday and I just know I'm going to miss things. Yes, I know that I will still have plenty of time with him each evening and on the weekends to teach him new things and experience new things with him myself - but, it's just not the same.

One thing that is so sweet that I will have to look forward to when returning to work is that Luke will now try his best to tell me about things that he remembers from his day when we are rocking at night. Here's one example - the other night, Matt Hill came over for about 30 minutes before Luke went to sleep. Luke loves Matt so as soon as Matt walked in, Luke handed him a book and crawled in his lap and "read" Matt the book by saying the words of the pictures he knew. Well, that night when rocking Luke, I, of course, talked about how sweet he was with Matt earlier. After I talked with him about our day and night, he looked at me and said, "Matt (jabber, jabber, jabber), book." I thought this was so sweet - he was trying his best to put together a sentence about him and Matt reading books. This is just the start of him being able to truly tell me what he did each day. I will love this because I will get to hear from his own mouth how his day was - good, bad, and the new things he learned. Oh my - mammaw Carolyn and his preschool teacher better get ready - he's going to be telling me everything they say and do before long - AND - Mommy better be careful because Luke will be telling his teacher and mammaw Carolyn everything that Mommy and Daddy do. (I know this from experience - you should hear what those Kindergarten students tell us at school - they have no secrets and sometimes it is hilarious!) :)

Anyway - sorry to hit you with a brag, brag, brag blog but I just can't help it - and, remember, as much as I love you guys reading, this blog is meant to be a journal for me. :) And, I think you will agree - I brag a lot on my blog but I'm also pretty honest with the readers about tough times too. :)

Below are two videos that I took a few weeks ago....in the first one, Luke is asking for "juice" and in the second one, he's asking for "milk" - maybe I can post some video later of him trying to use two word phrases. It's so hard to capture everything on video....I need to just set up a video on a tripod all day. :) (I know, I know, you better watch out - I might really do it!) :)

Enjoy the videos...

See you back in a few days for our weekly Road Trip and Play Dates post! Getting ready to have another play date and short road trip tonight with Silas so I didn't want to post yet.

See you soon!

Toddy