Dancing with Ernie

On a trip to find a good toy airplane for Liam, we found out that the toy store can be quite a party! Sadly, we did not find a suitable toy plane.

Liam and I had a terrific weekend while Annika was out of town. I think my favorite parts were our walks to and from the local park talking about fall, walking in the grass and playing the stop-go game (or as Liam says: "Bop, doe").

Tree Yellow Down

Liam and I took a nice walk today and learned about fall. On the way
home we played the stop-go game: Liam periodically freezes and then I
freeze until he starts walking again. We both had fun :)

Rainy day

It was a rainy day today so we played inside at playwisekids.

Fun at Target

Liam had a great time exploring Target last night and trying on some merchandise :)

 

Playing in the basement.  When Liam sees this picture he says "Down.  Ball."

Pivotal Moments

Liam enjoys a bubble bath by putting the bubbles all over his head

Liam comes to the rescue of his friend before she is cooked by the witch.  One of a few such scenes at a local farm where we got a pumpkin and some expensive apples.

About a week ago, Liam started putting words together in two-word phrases.  The phrases take the form "no kitty" or "bye-bye daddy."  The leading word in these phrases is called a pivot word - it can be used in many contexts preceded or followed by an open word (e.g. bye-bye daddy, bye-bye mommy, bye-bye kitty).  These short phrases are referred to as "telegraphic" speech because they resemble the short-cut wording of a telegram.

He's really interested in letters now and will point out an M, O, etc. in random words that we see.  He identifies yellow (la-lellow) and blue.  At first, I thought he might be red-green color blind, but he can point to the right color when asked, he just doesn't seem to be able to say those colors.

Sitting in a stroller can be a real drag, so Liam has taken to walking along with us while we push an empty stoller (which is just a bit slower).  Here he is preparing to walk the dog:

Mommy was recruited to add the video, so while I was here, I thought I would also share this picture, which shows what a difference a year can make. You can see from last year at the farm, he was not only smaller, but he didn't get the "put your head in a circle" thing. This year, he even smiled for the camera.

Number of signs, words and phrases Liam can express over time (months old).

Spoiler Alert!

 

    We've put a big emphasis on communication for a long time with Liam.  We reward him for communicating calmly and effectively by giving him what he wants when he asks for it.  This has led to at least two things: Liam's ability to communicate very well, and Liam's expectation that he gets whatever he wants! Recently, we've begun to feel that he's started to get a bit bossy :)  The other night, he asked for his dog pajamas by doing the sign for dog and saying 'woof woof' while we were changing him.  Usually, we would comply, but the recent cold weather doesn't fit well with a t-shirt for bed time, so we wanted to put him in warmer pjs.  This was not acceptable to his highness, who definitely let us know.  After much protest, we got him into his warm pjs and then put his dog pajamas on top :)

    Sometimes, Liam doesn't even have to try.  We just loved this wooden train set our neighbors have, so we got it (for Liam, not Daddy ;). 

Signing and Saying

Liam can now sign about 45 words and say about 24 (depending on what you count as a word and assuming I'm remembering everything). His signs are focused on animals, objects and requests, while his words are more focused on people (although animals and statements are close behind). Of all his words, there are only 7 that he can't also sign and they're almost all names, colors and letters, which are a bit more abstract. His words basically consist of the vowel sounds plus B, D, H, M and N.

I'm very glad we tried sign language with Liam since it has clearly enabled him to communicate with us much more than he can with words alone. I'd imagine this leaves him less frustrated than he would have been, but who knows? His vocabulary is very strongly centered around nouns (the verbs he knows like eat and sit are more focused on the nouns involved - like the food or the end-state of sitting - than the actions themselves). Grouping people with animals makes the focus on living things quite clear too. He's also picked up on the names of things before the attributes (e.g. ball before yellow). His spoken vocabulary is limited by the sounds he's capable of making, and his signs are also limited by the dexterity of his hands (yellow, sheep and water all involve more difficult hand shapes).

Here are the lists of words I'm counting so you can judge for yourself whether they "count" as words :)  Drum-roll please....

Signs:
Animals (13) : cat, dog, fish, lion, bird, pig, monkey, horse, cow, owl, bear, turtle, giraffe
Objects (11): moon, book, light, phone, bath (tub), fan (ceiling), ball, "that" (pointing), shoes, car, plane
Requests (10): help, open, pick-me-up, more, eat, drink, milk, please, down, sit
People (1): daddy, mommy
Statements (6): no (head shake), yes (head nod), all-done, bye, blow a kiss, hi/bye (wave)
Numbers (1): one
Colors (1): orange
Food (2): apple, banana

Says:
People (~6): Dada, Mama, Ady (friend Adeline), Baby (himself in a picture, or other babies), Debbie, Mommy, Daddy, Bobo (one of his grandfathers)
Animals (5): Ditty (for Kitty), 'oof (for dog), Moo (for cow), Raaar (lion roar), Baa (for sheep)
Statements (4): Bye, No, Hi, Uh-oh
Objects (3): Ba'a (Ball), Bone (dog's bone), 'Aoom (for car's vroom), Boo'oo (Pool)
Requests (2): Mo'h (More), num-num (for food)
Colors (2): B'oo (Blue), Yeddow (Yellow)
Sounds (1): A-choo (to fake a sneeze)
Letters (1): B