The first and last of these (the first being my absolute favorite picture of him – he’s signing “Light”) are of him at about 9 months, the rest are where he is now – 11 months and a week. His elven ears show clearly in the fifth and sixth photos. He was unhappy with the cold in several of these.
Yesterday he was standing alongside my desk as I was in bed reading, and still holding the desk, he stepped away from it, reaching toward the bed which was just out of reach. He began to move to make a free standing step to the bed, but then skillfully dropped down onto his bum. He then crawled to me and hoisted himself up beside the bed, and looking up at me with his friendly grin, said warmly:
“Hiiii daa-daaa.”
I said: “Hi! Good job, you just spoke a sentence.” – and he got down and crawled away.
So there was his first sentence and almost his first step. He’s doing to me what I taught him to do to mom – I’ve frequently taken him to Tia in the morning, waved his little arm at her as he smiles, and said “Hii ma-ma.”
Today while I was in the shower he pushed on the bathroom door to get in and again said “Hii da-da.”
Yesterday I carried him for a walk and we passed a woman sitting on a bench at the mouth of Rock Canyon. He called accross the street to her “Da-da! Da-da!” – so I guess that also means “Friendly grown up.”
The day before yesterday, outside, he looked at our car and went “vvvvrrrrmmmm” and waved, as in waving me goodbye in the morning off to work as he often does.
The day before that he crawled accross the wooden floor in the basement where I lay on a sofa thingie (the white one for Tia’s photography), hoisted himself up to me, took my face and wrapped his mouth around my cheek, and slowly bit down.. HARD. I said “Ouch!” and lifted his teeth off, and said “No, kiss gentle.”
His word, sound, and sign vocabulary has been expanding a lot, and here’s his complete (so far as we know or remember) vocabulary with a few ones we’d left out. I don’t know whether I’ll keep tracking these if he’s starting at sentences now.. isn’t he too young to leave babyhood?
Words: Bird (buh), book (booh), dip, duck (a sharply stopped “duu”), boo (like peek-a-boo), bye (ba), doll (da), snowman (mo-man), bear (beh), hi. He had me get a painting of Jesus off the wall and hold it in front of him. He smiled at the portrait and I said “That’s Jesus. Jesus.” He imitated: “Che-seh.” Noted previously: Book, ball, ma-ma da-da, grampa (ba-pa), poop (bpoo-bpoo), bop, outside (da), this (dis/deesz), that (dat), dog (da), banana (nana), cheerios (dcheess), SPIDER MAN (bai-man!), dam (?).
Sounds: Pig (throat cluck), lamb (a baaaa without vibrato), flower/star/flare shape (a sharp nasal exhale which is a mistaken sniff), horse or zebra (a tongue clack or a niegh – he’s been doing that for months and I think we didn’t mention it; he also does this for a deer), cow (booo). Noted previously: Lion (gutteral French RRRR), elephant (also ASL sign), cat, monkey (a chimpanzee haa-haa-haa), dog (wfff!) bear/gorrilla/aligator/monster (rhaspy Rrrah! – or also for bear just a chest grunt), car (BVVVVVBBVVV)
Signs: music, light, milk, dog, elephant, baby, bed, bye-bye, pointing.
Words he understands: dance (he’ll dance), kiss (he’ll kiss you, gently or sometimes as I’ve noted with a hard bite), upstairs, walk, brush your teeth, bath.
[Here’s an update of some I missed. Also the bird he signed since posting this was a new sign for him.]
