Language Development

Now our son Than is definitely a very verbal child. He is always chattering away, never mind if it consists of actual words that make sense. But over the last few weeks it is as if a switch has been flipped and he is now picking up new words and phrases pretty much non-stop. A fair number of them he is learning from singing along (or attempting to) with the t.v.

We finally have an answer to the "Money" question. A few months ago Than started yelling "Money" whenever Ryan would come home from work. We couldn't figure out where he got that from. It isn't a word we use much and we didn't know why he only associated it with Ryan. After a while Ryan was becoming convinced that I had taught him to do that. Well Than finally made it clear what he was saying. A few days ago when Ryan went upstairs to do something Than ran to the bottom of the stairs and yelled "Honey! Honey!" up at him. He was mimicing me. Whenever I yell across the house or down the stairs to get Ryan's attention or help I bellow "Honey". That was what Than had been trying to say but his H sounds weren't quite up to it. Now it is one of his favorite words. He is always yelling it to try to get either of our attentions. We'll be at the park and I'll hear him yelling it at me. It is pretty funny. Plus at least the mystery is solved.

He has also recently proved that as suspected he is a natural born smart ass. I guess he takes after his mama. He picked the phrase "Oh come on" up from a Wiggles song that is sweet and peppy, yet within 20 minutes he turned it into a sarcastic expression of displeasure. So now we hear a lot of very angstful "Oh come on"s.

He continues to be very polite. I watched him run up to a donkey and say, "Hi! How are you?" He has yet to ask a person that but he really wanted to know how the donkey was doing.

His general vocabulary is just growing by leaps and bounds. I can no longer begin to keep track of all the words he knows and uses. I wish we could remove a few from the list like "mine" but I'm sure that is a common wish. The other phrase I hear endlessly is "What's that?". Cute occasionally, obnoxious when it is every 2 minutes and about things that he already knows what they are.

By the gods I love that kid. He is definitely a character.