Miscellaneous Fun Stuff

"Mine!" I've heard John say "mine" in the correct context about half a dozen times now, so I think I can no longer deny the fact that, at 21 months, we're entering the mine-phase. Wish us the best.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: John's favorite new vehicle is the bus. The other day we were running errands at 2:15 p.m. right as all the school buses were hitting the streets. John was ecstatic. I was thoroughly impressed that he had learned the word "bus" only several days before, but already he could properly identify buses versus other big vehicles. He declared "bus" for regular yellow school buses, short yellow school buses, regular city buses (which are white), and the short, white city buses, which have a different shape entirely. But he never called a truck a bus.

Words: His language development is so fun right now. John is now at the stage when I can say, "Can you say [word]?" and he'll repeat it. For some time now, he's been repeating the last word of almost every sentence I say. I noticed over the last week that now he is beginning to repeat the operative word. So, if I say, "Can you bring the book to Mama?" he might repeat, "Book!"

And I just love how he says "oatmeal" (an admittedly very difficult word): eee-man-oh. He does the same reversing of vowel sounds for Mary (as in, the Blessed Virgin): Mee-maw.

I think John is now stringing together words, not just a combination of signs and words. For example, the other day he and I were on a neighborhood walk when Chris had to leave for a meeting, so Chris drove past us to wave goodbye. John was quite distressed and for the rest of the walk kept saying in a tiny, plaintive voice, "Dada vroom bye . . ." Does that count? I guess I'd been waiting for him to use a noun and verb properly together, but maybe this counts as initially stringing separate words together.

Imitation: John usually comes with me to prenatal appointments and he has come to look forward to them because he gets his tummy "measured" just like Mama. As soon as we pull up outside the building, John recognizes it and begins lifting up his shirt to indicate that he wants his tummy measured. When the time comes for the midwife to measure my tummy, John very somberly climbs up onto the table as well, lays down, and lifts his shirt. The midwife measures his tummy and declares, "You have a good tummy!"