One Thousand Words

Niko came bolting out of the bedroom the other day, clutching Nesko’s belt.

“I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE DIT!” he hollered, then wrapped the belt around his neck. As an aside, you know all those warnings on things with strings and dangly bits that say to keep them away from toddlers? It’s because toddlers are actively suicidal and like to wrap things around their throats. Their survival instinct is basically nil.

I untangled him and brought the belt back to Nesko, who gave Niko a loving lecture about how that was HIS belt and HE NEEDED IT. Apparently “I need it” is a thing Nesko says a lot when Niko takes something of his. I say “bring that to me. Put it in my hand.” I give direction. Nesko gives a reason. “I need it.” And it’s a phrase that Niko loves.

He’s been carrying things around saying “I NEEEEEEEED IT” for a few days now, and when he wants something he’ll point and say “I NEED IT.” He’s also progressed to saying “I GOT IT” and “I NEED YOU. I NEEEEEEEEEEEE DYUUUUUUUUUUU.” Super adorbs? Yes.

He’s still saying “Oh my!” when something surprising (or fake surprising, like a car falling off the table when he’s pushed it off) happens. He looks for people and things saying “where (item/person)? Where cu be? I dunknow.” with a little shrug and hand flutter at “I dunknow.”

He picked up “read the book” a while ago, and he’ll present books to us with the command “reada book!”, but has also progressed to “baby read book.” He says that when he’s sitting by himself perusing a book, either describing what’s going on in the pictures or else saying nonsense words because he’s “reading” the text.

One of his favorite books is “Babies” by Gyo Fujikawa. It’s about, you know, babies. There’s a 2 page spread of babies tearing up the pea patch (so to speak) with the line “sometimes they are naughty.” One of the naughty babies is dumping a glass of water on the floor, and the picture has always entranced Niko. He used to scold the baby (“No! Nenene! Wawa. Noooooo! no wawa.”) and now that he’s a bit more verbal he refers to all spills as  naughty, or “nauny.” Which was kind of hilarious yesterday when, while admonishing him to be careful as he practiced drinking from a cup, I knocked over a full glass of lemonade and became “nauny mama. OH NO.” He also refers to his own behavior as “nauny” when he’s doing something we’ve told him he shouldn’t do, like fiddle with my ball of yarn (which, yes, he still screams at and fake cries at sometimes, possibly more as a joke/reminisce than anything else) or throw shoes.

He’s saying “purple” and “green” now, to the best of his toddler abilities, but still refuses to say “pink.” We’re working on that, and on brown, white, and black. He can repeat numbers one through ten, but doesn’t say them on his own or say what number comes after a spoken number. He refers to ABC books as “AyebeeZHEEEE” books and can identify all the vowels with a 90% success rate where “identify” is “point them in a mixed group,” and can pick out some consonants as well.

He does a lot of babbling/mumbling/baby talk that’s salted with both English and Serbian words and phrases. I’m understanding more and more of what he says.   He’ll pack a “real” word, or group of words, inside of toddlerbabble, like he’s got to pad out the sentence a bit, but it’s getting easier to understand what he says, and what he means.  It’s pretty cool.

Technorati Tags: baby talk, parenting, speech development, talking, toddler, verbal development

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