Friday, December 10, 2010

Translation, Please

I have been meaning to get this down somewhere so I can remember.  At 16 months, Mitchell has 30-35 words in his vobabulary.  His first real word was uh-oh, followed by Daddy and dog.  He says Mama a lot more now, which is often mixed with 'mo' (and the accompanying sign for more), I guess because he knows Mama will always feed him!

Here's a rundown of some of what he's saying/doing (since some of it is closer to signing than speaking) these days:
  • wa-wa is the universal word for anything to drink; he drinks his wa-wa in a 'pup'
  • ow-da (outside); he will go and stand at the back door when I ask Dixie if she needs to go outside, and sometimes he'll just go stand there without me even asking and start saying it over and over.  The first syllable is emphasized with a very exaggerated open mouth, where his chin almost touches his chest.
  • poo (for both spoon and fork)
  • peas (please, along with a vigorous rubbing of his chest, to approximate the sign for it)
  • pass (pacifier)
  • bush (brush)
  • bath, which I sometimes get it confused with his pronunciation of either pass or brush, as they all sound similar but he definitely uses them distinctly
  • likes to say nose and then points out the nose, eyes, ears, head/hair and mouth of anyone around; be careful if he goes for your nose or your eyes, as his finger ususally goes IN both; also likes to point out belly buttons if you ask him where people's are but he doesn't really say anything for that yet
  • up and open (both sound similar but I can usually tell which it is he's trying to say)
  • socks/shoes (and his favorite, boots, with emphasis on a long 'ssss' sound at the end)
  • hat
  • ba-bwee (baby)
  • hot ('ot, and then he usually does a little 'ssss' noise because that's how we taught him not to touch the fireplace and the oven and he seems to think it is funny
  • tair for chair
  • light
  • book
  • bubbas (bubbles)
  • Mitchell's name for Santa is Ho.  I'm not sure Santa will apprecite that one.
  • Foods he likes to say are apoo (apple), eths (eggs), ice, cacker, rais (raisins), gape (grape), cheese and he has a word for blueberries but I cannot reproduce it, much less spell it.
  • Animals: dog (also says woo-woo; this continues to be his favorite word, we are all dogs all the time around our house), cow (only says cow sporadically but if he sees a picture of a cow or you ask him what a cow says he will respond with moo), horse (same as with cow, rarely says the word but knows neigh very well), duck (says the word and also knows that a duck says 'dack dack'), cat (prounounces the cat sound like mow instead of meow), 'daff' (giraffe), 'ga ga' (for the gobble gobble of a turkey, although he cannot say that word)
  • He has an animal book that he can identify a lot of the animals in, either by the name of the animal or by the sound they make, but as we all know some animals don't make a noise that is identifiably thiers, or easy to mimic, so I try to tell him something about those animals, like "the zebra has stripes" or "the elephant has a long nose".  One of them I've always done is say "waddle waddle" when we see a penguin, so now he says something like that and sways from side-to-side when he sees one.
  • Names he can say pretty well: Mama, Dada, Dixie, Maddie (next door neighbot/classmate and her name is running a close 2nd to dog these days as his favorite one to say), Mike, Spot (dot), Grampa (pa-pa).  We work on his other classmates' names regularly and he does a pretty good job with all of them but one, which is kind of tough (Dakota; if anything he will say something like 'co' when I say his name).  The others I can make out that's what he's saying are "ez" (Ezra), "dack" (Jack), "day" (Grey), and ess-da (Jessica, a teacher).
  • He loves to say hi and bye.  His new thing is to go tell someone bye when he's ready to go or wants me to be done talking.  He does the bye thing a lot lately if I'm talking on the phone and he's at home with me.  He'll just walk up to me and say 'bye' to me and start grabbing on my legs.  He makes sure I get the message!

I am sure there are plenty of other cuties I'm leaving out.  It is really fun to watch him processing so much.  I know what he comprehends is way more than what he can say, that's for sure!

No comments:

Post a Comment