Progress, progress

A has started volunteering a few phrases recently. For most people with three-yr-olds, these won't seem like any big thing; for A, who rarely says more than one word at a time (if that), this is Huge!

He's saying things like "want to go outside"; "food hungry ok ok ok"; "thank you daddy"; "gonna get you" and "where (did) you go?" (while playing peek-a-boo with little sister, another huge development! Playing, and playing with others at that!) A lot of times we'll get jargon mixed in with actual words, like "digga digga digga foooood! asdflkjasfjasdlaf fooooood!" (I don't know how to spell all the gibberish, that last one was just a guess).

He also asked "Peter?" today (incessantly, while I was cleaning up one of the aforementioned disasters), and I had no idea what he wanted until he ran up to his easel. He meant "picture".

A is discovering that words mean things, and if he learns the words to what he wants, chances are he'll be more likely to get them (as opposed to just grunting or screaming, when it's a total crap-shoot as far as we're concerned. We could be giving him a piece of fruit when he wants a movie, for example).

Frustratingly, though, as he is trying out new phrases and things he seems to be losing some of the older words he actually used. "Moobie" (movie) has turned into "ooo-eeee" ~ but extremely high-pitched and, admittedly, extremely annoying. Which makes us less likely to actually want to grant his wish, only that would mean he would keep saying it, and at least he's saying something. "Banana" morphed into "Guanana" and "Nana" and now is one of the three. "Hair" is "Hay". He has also started repeating the same word or phrase over and over and over until he either a) gets what he wants (when we figure it out), or b) has been told several times "no", he throws a tantrum, and gets put in time-out.

But we're getting there!