Spike Speaks

Everyone who has a toddler says this, but I didn't totally get it until it happened to me and Spike: It is truly amazing (and entertaining!) to watch your child acquire language.

Every single day, Isaac says words that he never said before. At his 18 month appointment, Isaac's doctor asked me how many words he knew. I had no idea, so she was more specific: "Does he know more than 10?" "Oh yeah!" I said. I went home and made a list of all the words I could think of and came up with more than 40! Since then I'm sure he's doubled that number again.

Another cool thing about language acquisition is how Isaac has really started to put words together to make phrases. He's using possessive forms a lot. He points to my coffee (OMG, she drinks coffee when she's pregnant? I would never do that.) and says, "Mama's dink," and then points to his milk and says, "Izey's dink." Or he'll often get pretty excited about everybody having a hat on "Mama's hat. Daddy hat. Izey's hat." After Kedzie's last outburst, he quickly learned, "No, No, Kedzie!!" The other day he started asking for "Daaaaaddy!" and I told him, "Daddy's at work." He said, "Daddy busy."

Here are a few of my favorite words that Isaac has recently learned:

Nake (for naked) is Isaac's preferred state of dress. He has started insisting on getting "nake" at various times of the day, and is always happy to have company in his shirtless state. Yesterday at Target we took his coat off and then he started trying to take his shirt off, pleading, "Nake! Nake!" I've started telling him, "No, Isaac, naked is for tubbies only." (Oh, for those of you who don't speak Izey, a "tubby" is a bath.)
Oh geez I didn't realize how often I say, "Oh geez" until Isaac picked it up!
Awesome I had also forgotten until recently that one of my colleagues at Harper used to make fun of me for saying "awesome" all the time. Now every time I put Isaac's boots on him, he says, "Awesome!"
Stuck is a very useful word for a 19 month old. He gets himself stuck between the ottoman and the couch, he gets a ball stuck in his awesome boots, he gets his fingers stuck in his snack trap...
Ni-night, sleep Isaac's absolute favorite thing to do is to put his baby dolls (Reggie, Dora, Diego, and Baby) down for naps. He finds a nice pillow, stair, laundry basket, or shoe box for them to lay down in, covers them up with a little blankie and says, "Ni-night, sleep."
Target This is a sign that we go grocery shopping way too often. For some reason, Isaac loves Target, especially the one with the underground parking lot and escalator. Now before he can even see the store he starts excitedly yelling, "Target! Target!" from the backseat. If we drive by without going in, he whines dejectedly, "Target." It is so pitiful. He also knows when we're approaching Daddy's work or home and announces our approach before we've even made the final turn: "Daaaaddy!" or "Home, home."

There are a million that I'm forgetting. I'll post more as I think of them.

Spike's Granini and Grandpa Dave got him the book of the song "Down by the Bay," which he constantly requests. We quickly realized that he's picked up most of the syllables in the title line and sings it to himself all the time now. I'm always trying to catch him on video in the act of talking, which is hard to do, but I was actually successful with this one:


He also has a book version of "The Little Drummer Boy" which he calls "Pum, pum, pum." We just got Josh Groban's Christmas CD (aMAZing!) which has that song on it. When Isaac heard it the first time, he got all geeked out and said, "Pumpumpum! Pumpumpum!" Now he always asks for it.

There are a few words that he says all the time we haven't been able to figure out yet. "Nemo" is the most frequent example of this. (He's never seen "Finding Nemo.") Another word that was unintelligible for a couple days was "muey." It almost sounded like he was saying Murray, which is my sister's dog's name, but then we realized that he says it when he wants a kiss! That one is extra funny because my dad, who got it from his mom, used to say "muey, muey" when he wanted a kiss, and nobody taught it to Isaac!

Okay, I could go on forever because this stuff is fascinating to me, but I'll stop before you take me off your google reader!