Sunday, March 26, 2006

Dancing

Kelton sure knows how to tug at the heart strings. We had already danced a few songs in the living room when I took him to the kitchen and put him down. Shortly he grabbed my finger, led me back to the living room to the center of the rug where he let go, turned around, and put his arms up in the air. Needless to say the chores I'd planned to do got delayed for a while.

Language log: combining 2 signs

I would never have thought Kelton would reach the exalted 2-word stage using signs instead of spoken words. But that's what's happened!

He can sign "down, eat" then walk over to the gate at the top of the stairs to get daddy out of bed to feed him breakfast. And he can sign "more juice" when he wants daddy to stop shoveling in the spinach and chicken and switch back to the yummy orange juice (which, by the way, he insists on drinking from a cup like a grownup).

Saturday, March 25, 2006

First haircut

Language log: down, lots of signs, and more

Kelton's latest word is "da", for down. Down from upstairs for breakfast, down from his highchair, down from an overlong daddy cuddle.

He can also say truck, after a fashion -- it comes out "dk".

He is also coming along with his signing. He can make more signs than words, which helps him communicate and avoid frustration while he waits for his vocal control to develop. The first few signs took a while, but now he knows when to pay attention to learn a new sign. He's long known "milk" (like milking a cow), and "more" (fist hitting palm), but also knows "all done" (back-and-forth hand motion), "eat" (fist to mouth) and now "drink" (finger to mouth then tilt hand up), airplane (thumb and forefinger extended then hand moves back and forth -- and he points out every one!), fish (vertical wiggling hand), water (horizontal wiggling hand), and even flower (sniff sniff). He might know bird and light, but I'm not sure.

He knows what sounds the doggies make (wuh wuh wuh, very quietly). He knows what it means to go outside, and what a truck is (and we had better bring his with when we go outside).

He can answer "where's daddy's nose" and "where's mommy's bellybutton" (even if he has to lift a shirt to find it). The bellybutton thing he learned in just one day.