We haven’t been keeping Alex’s vocabulary up to date very well. This is at least party due to him learning so much so quickly that is’ getting hard to keep track of, but here are some recent favourites:

• “Deddy…Go!” (Ready…Go!) He loves saying this, and loves playing it. He expects us to do something exciting, like toss him up in the air, run with him, or tickle his tummy whenever he says “Go!”
• Nigh-nigh. When he gets tired, he’ll pull the cushions and a blanket down from the sofa, and make himself a little nest. Often, he expects someone to lie down next to him as well.
• Round and round! He doesn’t say this yet, but if you say it to him, he’ll do his spinning round-and-round dance.
• Close your eyes. Connected to the nigh-nigh game, he will now close your eyes if you ask him nicely.

Also, he now know many more body parts, and will point them out on other people and even pictures, as well as on himself! What a clever little boy 🙂

I made a list of all the words that Alex knew last weekend, and it’s already out of date. He’s learning so fast that I can’t keep up.

Words He Could Say On Saturday

• Bye
• Ball (he can spot one a mile off)
• Nana (banana)
• Boo
• Cheek (while pointing to his cheek, very cute)
• Shoe
• Row, row (meaning, shake me all about)
• All gone (OK, it sounds like Caw Cah, but it means all gone)
• Vroom, vroom (when he wants to pretend to drive a car)
• Jes (his teddy bear)
• Ta (as in thanks – but he says it when giving things away)
• Mama (still a bit vague on who this is, but he pronounces it clearly enough)
• Dada (likewise)
• Yay (usually accompanied by clapping)
• Up (more Uh, but the meaning is clear)
• Down (OK, Duh, but he knows what he means)
• [Uh-oh] (very cute)

New Words This Week

• Peas (he caught sight of them cooking on the stove)
• [Noo-noo] (his pronunciation is weak on this one)

Words he Understands

All of the above, plus:

• Go outside (one of his earliest, and the signal to go stand by the front door. If he were a dog, he’d have his leash in his mouth.)
• Nose
• Ear
• Eye
• Tummy (he lifts his shirt and points, with a secret, confiding smile)
• Head (he pats it)
• Mouth
• Knee (very ticklish)
• Foot
• No (understands, yes. obeys, no.)
• Big Hug (he pats you on the back when he hugs you. There, there…)
• Clap, clap
• Splash, splash

He doesn’t use them in the midst of a stream of private-language words the way his cousin Tom did. His words tend to be stand-alone affairs, interspersed with discrete sections of babbling.

What fun!

Yesterday and this evening, when I was rocking Alex to sleep I sang him one of his favourite little songs: “Row, row, row your boat…”. We often do this when he sits in our laps. We’ll grab him by the hands and row him back in forth to the time of the song. He loves this.

But in the dark, with him well on his way to sleepyland, I just sang the song without the actions. He lay in my lap, with his head in the crook of my arm. And then he reached up and grabbed my hand with both of his. He clenched it tightly, then started pulling my hand towards him, and pushing it way. Row, row…

And then he started singing behind his noo-noo: “Voo… voo… bow… seeeah!” His eyes were closed, but by the yellow glow of the nightlight I could see that his brow was all furrowed in concentration.

He sang to me!

And he’s getting many more words now. He seems to be reaching the point where he will hear a word and try to imitate it. He doesn’t do this consistently yet, but he has given it a couple of tries. He now knows all about his cheeks (“zhee”), his feet (“foo”) and his shoes (“zhu”). And he’s getting better with “dada”, too. 🙂

On a lighter note than the barfy illness… Alex is doing a lot of talking now, and is starting to understand a lot of words. He is also imitating us more and more. As we were playing upstairs earlier on, I put my hands over my eyes to play peek-a-boo, and he immediately put his hands over his eyes! Very cool. I think the imitating is also helping him pick up the words more quickly.

Words he really knows the meaning of, and can say and point out:

• Bye!
• Ba (ball)
• Nana (banana)

Words he can say, but hasn’t really completely connected with the real world thing:

• Mama
• Dada

Words he knows the meaning of, and can point out, but not yet say:

• Nose
• Mouth
• Ear
• Foot
• Head
• Tummy

Alex was sick again last night–all over me. He hadn’t been himself most of yesterday. His cheeks were red, he was very warm, and he had very little appetite. We’d thought he was teething (there’s a canine and a molar both pushing through right now), but it looks like it was more of a tummy bug instead.

We put him to bed very early (about 19:30), and I was quite surprised that he didn’t wake up later on in the evening. But at just after 01:00 he started to stir and cry. I went through to soothe him, and as soon as I lifted him out of his cot, he barfed all over my shoulder and back. I rushed him through to the bathroom and into the tub, but not before he’d had another few heaves. By this point he was awake and obviously feeling really horrible.

Abi got up as well,and we stripped him and I took him into the shower with me (while Abi cleaned up the barf in the hall). Now, when he and I first started showering together in Rome earlier this year, we called him a shower monkey because of how he clung to me. But that was sheer ameteur clinging back then. Last night I could have taken away my arms and he would have stayed attached to me. Alex is getting to be very strong.