Lost in Translation

A lot of what A says is prompted. "Say, 'thank you!'"; "Say,'bye'." (Most parents know the drill. "Say, 'please'?"; "What's this?").

Still, he's been volunteering some words lately (like aiggs and bawberries). He also spits out random quotes from movies or kids' shows at equally random times. Right now he's stuck on the end sequence for Bear in the Big Blue House. (We're pushing the Potty Time one right now). "Thank you bear. You're welcome. Good night. Good night. Friends bye. See you soon. Good night. Bear, moon, big blue house. Come and play." A will repeat this ~ in order ~ over and over and over....and say it in the car, outside, at bedtime (well, I guess that's kind of appropriate), at the grocery store.

Today at lunch, he kept saying, "gotta go fast" and drumming his hands on the table. Then he'd stop, laugh, and do it again.

He is attempting to identify new things, though, which is tremendously exciting and frustrating for both A and Z and I. He knows what the object is, but in addition to not being overly verbal, he also has some speech impediments that make translation difficult. He gets frustrated with us for not understanding him and making him repeat it a few times, and we get frustrated with not being able to "get it". It took us forever to figure out that "tornado" is actually "tomato". And "traimamamama" is "train".

One thing that is easily understood is when he goes "Oooeee sinky oooeeee sinky" whenever we change his diaper. It doesn't matter if it's just pee, he'll still say it. Neither Z nor I are entirely sure where he picked this up, but we're guessing it's from school. Despite saying this when we change his drawers, however, he still doesn't seem to equate going to the bathroom with his statement. It's just what you say when your pants are changed.

We are getting fewer "digga digga digga"s and other gibberish in conversation lately, too. As his vocabulary increases, there is a proportional decrease in that activity. Indicating that he was, in fact, trying to communicate and not just tuning us out ~ he just didn't know how to do so in a way that made sense to him. We still get the garbled chatter, especially when he's tired or super excited about something, but it is on a general decline.

Every day is a new adventure.

Speaking of adventures, on a completely unrelated topic, A was terrorizing our fish yesterday with his Buzz Lightyear and Woody the Cowboy figures from Toy Story. He was stalking the fish by chasing them with a character on each side, and then sandwiching the fish between Buzz and Woody. All on the outside of the glass, of course; neither Buzz nor Woody had any deep sea adventures during the course of the...game? The fish didn't seem to notice any of the ongoing terrors, except when A slammed Buzz into the glass (mean mommy put and end to that real quick). I figured if the fish weren't having palpitations, then we were OK. They actually swam over a few times, curiously, to look at the goings-on. No doubt they were wondering if the spaceman or cowboy had any food to offer. I didn't understand the game, but then again, I don't have to. He was entertaining himself, and actually playing instead of sitting in one place, motionless, for hours. How far we've come, in just a year!