Language skills have absolutely erupted here over the past week or two. I've been waiting for this so it's nice to see it happen. The little guy will now mimic anything when prompted (something he hadn't been doing before) and the words he can say are even clearer.
The other day he figured out how to nod "yes" - which is hilarious. He does such an exaggerated nod, bending waaay back, then flinging his head all the way forward. My husband called it "a Japanese bow on steroids". Yes, my husbands has no idea how to be politically correct.
I'm also really impressed with how easily he can follow instructions now (the little guy that is - not my husband). Sometimes I'll ask him to do something complicated - either with multiple steps or in words that I'm not certain he will yet understand - and he'll just run off and do it. Meanwhile I'm sitting there completely flabbergasted, having expected to have to explain further or coach him through the steps.
Letting us know what he wants has become much clearer as well. He'll use words, multiple signs, pointing and occasionally some bodily tugging or pushing to get his message across. He's learned the sign for "tired" and has been using that when he wants to go to bed, which is just so sweet. And he absolutely shocked me the other day when he actually asked me to change his diaper, as he's never shown any notice of having a dirty diaper before. He's asked a couple times since then - maybe this is a sign that we can start considering potty learning? I'm a total newb, I admit it, I have no idea how to go about doing that.
He also understands the idea of "first we have to do this...then we can go do that." Not that he's always happy about it, but he understands it and accepts it.
And books! He's long been a huge fan of books, but things had started to peter off a bit in that regard. There has been a definite resurgence lately, though, leaving us with tall stacks of books in all his favourite reading spots.
He's recently started on a dinosaur kick, which surprised me for some reason. Now he points them out everywhere, has added "dinosaur" to the list of words he can say, and his most requested book is a dinosaur alphabet book. Some of those dinosaur names...quite the mouthful. Ah well, first I had to learn how to tell the difference between a backhoe and a bulldozer and a loader and all the rest, now I suppose it's time to get my "mother to a little boy" education in dinosaurs.
Ah, but with all these great leaps in communication lately, we had one dismal failure the other day. The little guy was standing beside the toilet with me, watching as I scraped out his diaper. When I was done I nodded to him to go ahead and flush the toilet, which he likes to do when I'm finished with the diaper. Well, he interpreted my "flush the toilet" nod as a "go ahead and drop that sock you're holding into the toilet" nod. Doh. I let out an exclamation and he looked up at me with a "oh...that wasn't was I was supposed to do?" look, followed by an "am I in trouble?" look, so I sighed and closed my mouth and fished the floating sock out of the toilet and tossed it in the diaper pail. Lesson learned - use words, not nods.
haha, I love the fact that he tossed his sock in the toilet. I'm sure you were rather unimpressed. It's neat that he's now talking and comprehending complicated things! It's so nice to see children grow.
ReplyDeleteI just ordered a potty chair for Hannah today, in an effort to start this whole 'potty learning' thing. (I'm a total newb too and hope I don't mess things up more than I help, haha.) Hannah has been talking a lot about her poo poo, telling me when she goes and, as of today, asking me to "check it" (her diaper, that is).
ReplyDeleteBTW, have you seen this Motrin ad? http://www.cottonbabies.com/index.php?cPath=35
Yes, I did. Isn't it awful? The "official mom" comment was particularly irritating. Puh-leaze. Not to mention the whole "what about me?" and general whiny tone. A proper carrier shouldn't cause a need for pain medication - their bad ad, on the other hand...
ReplyDeleteThey did, to be fair, offer an apology, and also have an apology on their main page. It's a nice gesture - but it would have been even nicer if they hadn't put out such a ridiculous and offensive ad in the first place.
"I'm also really impressed with how easily he can follow instructions now (the little guy that is - not my husband)."
ReplyDeleteI fully assume that when I have children, they will be much, much better at following instructions than my husband. :)
My mom used to tell stories all the time about how I potty trained myself, and they started with talking about how I always asked her to change my diaper. Maybe that's a sign that things will go fairly smoothly, then?
You sound like a very observant mama and you are providing a wonderful, language rich environment for your little guy. I am a speech-language pathologist by trade so I totally understand the excitement about developing language skills! Continue to enjoy it!
ReplyDeleteJennifer
I laughed out loud at the "Japanese bow on steriods" part. Oh, the visual was great. ;)
ReplyDeleteSounds like your little man is really growing up. It must be fun (and draining, too, I'm sure) to wake up every day wondering what new thing he'll learn. :)
That's so cute about Jacob learning more words and just learning! hehe Daniel loves socks!!
ReplyDeleteLandon takes his diaper off and brings it to Haley haha She has started taking him to the potty and he's been using it. I'll be needing some guidance in that area too!
I'm jealous of your "first do this and then we can do that" understanding. Raiden just looks at us like we're crazy and hears the "then we can do that" part of the statement and gets mad when we try to push the first part on him. Oy.
ReplyDeleteHe's repeating a lot more words recently, too, though not many of them are very clear still. ("boosh" is fish, "booch" is peach, "doos" is shoe and juice, "peeta pwee" is Christmas tree, "doh doh" is hot dog, and turtle, and circle, lol.) Though he is following multistep directions - "put the scoop away, and close the cabinet." Sometimes. He really likes to open the cabinet ;).
I really need to start waiting five seconds before I save comments here....
ReplyDeleteRaiden has been telling us "pee pee" and "poo poo" for weeks now, so a couple weekends ago we finally picked up a potty chair (well, two, one for us, one for MIL). I figured I could start taking him to the potty when he says "pee pee" and let him start associating the two, right? Yeah, not so much. He really, really doesn't like to sit on the potty with no diaper on. He'd much rather stomp his feet, run away naked and pee in the living room floor.