Chatty Baby

a recent favorite activity:
"washing" hands at the kitchen sink

Anders (who is almost 18 months old) is in that great stage when his language development is making leaps and bounds. He can repeat almost anything you ask him to and is becoming adept at communicating his wishes. He knows what he wants and will repeat it again and again until you understand him. When you finally get it, he'll give you a great big belly laugh and clap his hands.

saying "hands"

For example, after dinner one evening the boys and I were just playing as usual. Suddenly Anders got an idea in his little head that he needed to communicate with me.

He was saying, "Tap! Tap! Tap!" and clapping his hands. I did the typical half hearted, "Oh, yeah, nice!" (translation: "I have no idea what you're saying, but you're cute!") But he wasn't having it. He repeated and repeated it. At first I thought he might be trying to say, "clap," but then he said, "Tap! Tap! Boat! Boat!" and I knew he wanted a bath, a.k.a. "tubby" around these parts.

"Oh, you want a tubby?" I asked. You shoulda seen his little face. He clapped and laughed and ran to the bathroom. It wasn't really bath night, but how could we say no?

Anders also now knows almost the whole family by name:

• Momma
• Daddy
• Ise (Isaac)
• Grampa/Gaga/Bamba (Grandpa Tim)
• Dave (Grandpa Dave)
• Nini (Granini)
• Nana (Nadia)
• Sahm (Sam)
• Pahm (Grandma Pam)
• Doss (Uncle Josh)
• Cahie (Aunt Carrie)
• Sorry Auntie Mango and Uncle Dan, we'll have to work on you guys!
  

He still gets confused, though, when you point to him and ask, "Who's this?" Once in awhile he'll say, "Baby," but the other day when I asked him, he looked down at himself and said, "Shirt!"

The first time we pointed to Isaac and said, "Who's that?" and Anders said, "Iye Iye," I got all choked up. Now he calls him "Ise."

Recently he learned a very useful phrase: "Ise! OFF!" (i.e. "Get off me!") Too bad Isaac's listening skills aren't as good as Anders's communication skills.

tell me about it, kiddo.

Another cute language tidbit: Anders calls to lost inanimate objects as you would call a person you're looking for, like, "ba--all? ba--all?" and gets really excited when he finds it or you give it to him.

And just to make his momma's heart really melt, Thor has recently started singing. The first notes I ever recognized as song occurred the other day when I was changing his diaper. He was holding "Snuggle Puppy," an adorable kids' book by Sandra Boynton that is actually a song. The chorus goes, "Oooo, snuggle puppy of mine, everything about you is especially fine..." Anders starting singing "Ooooo" and the rest of the my world drifted away. My baby's singing.