A smattering of words for the week.

As I expected my word list for Bertram has fallen hopelessly behind. However that seems fine since it's clear that his verbal ability is doing just fine. This post is a bit haphazard since I'm over busy lately, but I do manage to include a good smattering of Bertram's words. And I had better get a move on listing them here because there is no way I'm going to keep up with him for long. Recent additions that I can still recall are: Elbow: wow, that's a mouth full for him, but he like it. And it's less painful to point out than a nose tweak. Belly / Belly Button: Luckily without a tweak involved at all. Toy: Nothing exciting to report other than the fact that he can use general and specific words for the same thing. And understands the abstract group "toys" Play: which he both says and signs. The sign is a double shaka, (a.k.a. the surfer hand signal, "hang loose") which I think is just great. He does not quite have the gesture down yet, but I imagine it might come in handy some day. Slide: Swing: Goose: surprised me, I didn't know he was learning that one but he spots it in the book and at the Zoo a couple of weekends ago. Which reminds me of the many other animals Bertram can identify and say: Duck: a long time favorite, he quacks too. Dog / Doggy: which he signs and says, and barks. (he is sometimes afraid of dogs but not always). I don't think he has picked up Puppy yet. Frog / Froggy: Butterfly: which started out Fly, but is getting the butter added on lately. I'd like to include Bumblebee because he loves to try and say it, but it's just to hard to get out that many syllables. And he's not content to call them "bees" so they are yet and un-mastered animal. Cat / Kitty Cat / Catty: He also says Meow, and is quite fond of cats, real and photo. Cow: He signs and says cow, but never has any interest in saying Moo. I recall when he first worked this word out, it was one of the first words he said, and he was still working out how to control the sounds he was making. We were out at a restaurant and had brought along a plastic cow from a farm set Grandma Tricia bought for Bertram birthday, and he correctly identified it as "cow" and was so delighted to have managed that that he went ahead and said cow some 50 or so times with various adjustments to the pronunciation. This super repetition was really only given to Cow and Fan, most other words popped up a few times a day for a couple of days, and then disappeared for a week or two before becoming standards. Now days a new word will get extra use for the first week but then does not seem to have the disappearing habit, it just goes into normal rotation. Lion: He loves to say and identify lions, though I think perhaps only male lions are clearly lions so far. Monkey: which he signs but does not say, or not much. It's quite a cute sign, just act like a monkey. His initial vague variation on the Monkey sign was very cute, but unlikely to mean monkey to anyone but his very attentive parents. Much like his Fish sign will only mean fish to us. But it's interesting to see how it has gradually started to get closer to the correctly executed sign. I don't think anyone would guess monkey, but I think they could see what he's trying to do. It's still cute, and when he gets it just right and can stick his finger in his armpits and wiggle them while saying "ooh ooh" I'm sure it will be both cute and embarrassing for the parents. (the saying ooh ooh part is not technically part of the sign, but I can't help doing it myself) In fact I have a bad habit of telling him he looks like a monkey when he is at the park and he grabs hold of the safety railing bars on the equipment and shakes them (well shakes himself) and screams with joy and tries to shove his face through the bars. And he often replies by signing Monkey. More useful words: Go: which he signs and says, an old standby that he's been using for a long time. Please: still working on using this one more but it's going OK. He signs and says please. And as added entertainment, in one of his alphabet books there is a picture of vegetables including "peas" which he can correctly identify, but along with the sign for "please" which means we are probably being very confusing to him suggesting that he ought to say "peas" when he wants some toast or a cookie. But he takes it in stride. Thank You: which he says sometimes and has for quite a while, but now he says it at more appropriate times. He has a habit of picking up small things (like the things that should not be on the floor of an infants home such as bits of paper, fuzz, leafs) and handing them to you. To which we always reply thank you. Or when he hands us his ball or toy to share we say thank you. So Bertram figured that out quick and so whenever he gave you something he would say "thank you" well "ankoo". But he's got that pretty well sorted out and knows that you also say it when getting something. Early on Bertram loved talking and used his words at home and out, but lately he has become very shy. He won't even say hi and goodbye most of the time. Which covers two more words; interestingly he says Goodbye not bye, but only uses hello on the phone (toy cellphones, or when he grabs our phones), but says hi to greet people. Not sure he knows Hello : Hi are the same greeting or if he knows why you say "hello" on the phone at all. I've been trying to get him to say "I would like a large peperoni pizza" whenever he is on the cell phone, but that's been going no where so far.

He inexplicably mimicked me hiccuping

Well, not really hiccuping but Bertram has become an expert at mimicking, he still pronounces his works in that hard to distinguish baby way which means only mom and dad and a few other trained ears can make out a lot of what he is saying. I's say about half of his words are pronounced well enough for the general public, and half fall into the mushy area. However today at the Pharmacy while waiting for a prescription I took Bertram out of the stroller to run around, and he was patting on one of the waiting chairs and just blabbing nothing. (or at least nothing I could distinguish, something like ba be ba sush sush) Then another nice couple comes up, to wait in line, and Bertram is giving him his big making friends smile that everyone gets, and they ask if he is saying chair? To which I say no he doesn't say chair yet, but maybe Blue (which he says, and the chair is blue). I give Bert the prompting look, and I say "blue", he thinks about it and says ... "chair". Now I don't think, or at least I'm not sure he knows what chair means just yet. He is a good mimic and if you say something 10 times he's likely to give that word a try too. (depending on his mood) Which is why before I add a word to my list I wait until he provides it at the appropriate time without prompting. Such as when looking at an ABC book I point out the 'A', 'B', and 'C' on the cover, and he points to the 'A' as well and says "A". That's great but I don't expect him to really know 'A' just yet. But the next time when I point to 'A' and he says "AAAY" and hops of my lap to go get another alphabet book and show me it also has an 'A' on the cover, then clearly he really does have it down. It's only the letter 'A', and only caps. 'C' is generally identified as "Ball" or "D", and 'B' holds no interest whatsoever. So let's see which of Bertrams words have we covered. "A": maybe not a word, but it's on my list Ball: a very early word for him, and a mega favorite. It's one of the few he started saying, and now he signs it too. Blue: quite recent, and only very clearly identifies blue in one animal book, which has a color page. But he's identified it correctly in other circumstances. He also reminded me today to include a few of his other favorites. Baby: which he signs and says, and he loves his baby doll, on which he can point out the nose and eyes. (maybe ears) Nose: a very early word for him, which he also identifies on himself, and us by grabbing hold of quite painfully Eyes: which luckily he does not poke to indicate. Socks: which often get's confused with shoes, but we work it out. He insisted on putting on socks today, (we were putting away the laundry) but it was just to hot, so I only let him wear them for a few minutes. Ding: another brand new one, he's got a lot of much more practical ones, but this week seems to be about the onomatopoeia's. Today when the toaster bell went off in the kitchen from Mommy making some toast, Bertram and I were in his room and he took off like flash yelling "Ding" to go tell mom in the kitchen that something went "ding". He also brought up various Ding's several times today. I think were were some other new words today, but I can't keep track and I've probably fallen hopelessly behind in my list. But he can remind me about them all weekend.

Those are Dangerous Words

So I've been keeping a list of words that Bertram has learned to say or sign. It's funny when people ask if he has learned any words. Because he has known many many words for a long time, he understands them just fine. The question is has he learned to "say" any words. Which of course he has, lots and lots. It started out slow, and a new word would appear and then disappear for a few weeks, which made me wonder. But then it would creep back in, and there are weeks when I hear a new word every day from Bert, which sounds like an exaggeration even to me. But keeping the list it really is true, even on the "slow" weeks there are probably at least 2 or 3 new words. I've noted down a little about each word, and each is probably worth a sentence or two about why he likes that word, and a list of 60 works is not that interesting so I'm going to start transferring my list here and maybe try to fill out some of those remarks. I doubt that it's particularly interesting to the world in general, but Grandparents and Great-Grandparents may want to know. The list is 62 words right now, and I think I'll do them a few at a time so it's bound to be longer by the end. But I'll start with a few of the newest. nany nany: clearly baby talk this is nap in Romanian, and he learned this at the sitters. So I don't know much of the story other than to say that Bertram hates to nap or to sleep at all. He's wobbling between the two short naps he used to take and just one nap. Unfortunalty the one nap is not long enough for him and he ends up with big bags under his eyes, and pretty upset at bedtime. He was taking one nap at 10 or 11 ish in the morning and 3 or 4 ish in the evening. Though I hear he would take one long nap at the sitters instead often. Now he just skips one of those no matter what we do, but those are still the times when he gets tired. hair: this is another one I don't know how he learned, but the sitter suggested that he knew it, and yup he does. Maybe one of the other kids really likes hair, or maybe one is a grabber? Bert happily does not pull our hair. bean: Bertram has loved to eat black beans for a long time, but it was Mommy getting him some dried Lima beans to play with that got him to say it. She read about using them for practicing spooning, which he really does need to practice, but giving him food that needs spooning is asking for a big mess, so we are on mostly finger foods now days. mine: oh well, I guess he learned that from the 2 year old's at the sitter's for sure. We like to hope that's where he learned No as well. I haven't heard it that much yet, but he did say mine and play keep away with a toy when he was visiting his friend Charlie last weekend. On the up side it was the first time that they really played together, they are both walking and chased each other around Josh and Jessica's new apartment. bang: I thought he was trying to say bean which he pronounces 'bien' but it turns out he was saying bang, which is what we say he is doing when he hits the measuring cup on the floor. Its great to get more verbs into his vocabulary, they are a lot more tricky. He does pronounce it a bit Biang. the 'B' sound just seems to want an short i sound after it according to Bertram. beep: He also mimics us saying beep, I do tend to say "beep" though had not felt like I was doing it that much. But Bert sure has plenty of toys that beep. Though far less than a lot of friends, we do tend to hide them away so they get less use, and he seems to prefer things like balls, the beans, straws, and bits of paper now days. Not that he shuns his bright colored toys, but he wants the kind of stuff the adults have. whale: Mr. Danger was incredulous that the photos in the animal book and the plastic squirt bath toy whale were the same thing, but believes it now, or at least uses the same word for them both. Grandma Tricia bought him the bath squirt toys for his birthday when she was visiting, and he has loved to get squirted with them for a long time, but he has only managed to start squirting himself with them a couple of weeks ago. He was so excited to figure it out that he just screamed and bounced the whole bath. He kept squirting himself in the face, eyes, mouth: which would have made him quite mad if I did it. However it seems to be the preferred thing to do with the whale now that he can make it squirt. one more for today, and it's not a new one. shoes: Bert both signs and says shoes. He has been signing it for well over a month I don't recall, and saying it for quite a while as well, but I'll include it in this batch because Bertram just got some new shoes. They are his first "real" shoes, stiff leather things with soles. They should do for the fall, he's been wearing some transitional sandals all summer. But the sandals with leather souls are a bit slippery, and can be a problem at the park, and his feet just barely fit in them. So when we were visiting Charlie this weekend we stopped by the highly recommended Buster Brown store in Forest Hills to get his feet measured and fit for fall shoes. Bert really loves his new shoes, and is very happy to say shoe shoe shoe for you.