Tu parles Francais?

This morning as Matthew left for school he waved to Isaac and said "Au revoir!" Usually Isaac responds with "bye, bye!" but today he distinctly replied, "Au revoir! Au revoir!" and waved back.

I think that counts as his first French word. On the English front, I heard the words the new words "star" "hat" and "socks" yesterday.

To Isaac, all letters are "I." He likes to point at the letters in words and chirp, "I! I! I!" Son, that is an R and that an E. He'll repeat after me and then joyfully go back to "I! I! I!"

More Isaac Words

Isaac has added:

yuck!
"where are you?"
Melissa
hi!
stuck

in the last week.

Isaac Speaks

Our little pumpkin head is talking more and more lately. The trick is understanding him!

Just a few days ago we realized he was saying "bath" very insistently, we just didn't catch it initially. "Bah bah!" Who knows how long he's been using certain words?

Currently we can hear:

cookie
dog
kitty
shoe
"there it is!"
outside
bath
shoo! (when waving away bees)
up
go!
NO! (very well enunciated and very frequent!)
uh oh
thank you
mama
dada
Matthew
sticky
stinky
Mmm!
more
ow
ball
"where is it?"
bye bye
amen!
hooray!
pizza
happy birthday (he says this in a sing-song voice)
"bless you!" (when he or anyone else sneezes)

He makes various car noises and other sound effects when he is playing. Isaac chatters with us all day long, so we think he is trying to say other things that we aren't picking up on yet. Perhaps he will need speech therapy like big brother did... Guess we'll see. :)

BAH!

Yesterday morning I heard:

THUMP.....THUMP!
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
Thumpthumpthumpthumpthump!
ThumpthumpTHUMP!thumpthumpTHUMP!
Thumpthumpthumpthumpthump!

Interspersed with the thumping sounds I heard delighted squeals. BAH! BAH!

Isaac found the box of assorted sized balls and was dumping all of them down the stairs. After he finished emptying the box he helped me pick them up- then he dumped them again.

Today I noticed that Isaac says "Tah dah!" when he's done something he's pleased about. He turned the light switch on, "Tah dah!" and off, "Tah dah!"

Pumpkin Development

Isaac is starting to talk! He's been saying mama and dadda for a while now, but nothing else. We were beginning to get concerned, but just in the last few weeks words have popped out amid the baby chatter. Perhaps he is saying other things that we are missing, but the following words are unmistakable.

"DA!" is dog.

"NO!" Usually accompanied by vigorous head shaking. Funny how this was an early word for M&M too.

"Dan 'ou" is thank you.

"Uh oh!" This is perhaps his favorite word. He finds many opportunities during the day to use it, and is more often than not the cause of the uh oh. Busy boy.

"Air eh ehs!" or There it is! Usually said with a squeal after finding something.

"Aw eva" is au revoir? This last one we're not certain...

His words are very tonal, almost how I imagine Chinese babies sounding. In addition to words, Isaac likes to make car sounds whenever he is pushing a toy car with his hand. He also "roars" when he's pretending to be an animal on all fours.

We've known for a long time that he understands a lot of what we are saying to him, so we knew the that language was getting in; it was just a matter of him being able to get it out. I even started signing a few signs with him belatedly in hopes he would be able to communicate at least that way. He can sign "more" and "milk" and I wish I'd started much sooner. French, English, ASL, we didn't care which he chose, just communicate kiddo!

Recently he's grasped the difference between "mine" and "yours" in the game, "Where's my nose; where's your nose?" His favorite body part is the belly button.

Isaac development

Isaac figured out how a straw works today. He first blew bubbles through it and then tried sucking on it. His surprised reaction was fun to watch. Pleased with himself, he repeated the exercise drinking more water. When he got bored he dumped the water, of course.

Our little Pumpkin also enjoys playing with containers, preferably ones with lids he take on and off. He delights in putting things into the containers, placing the lid on, shaking it, taking the lid off, and then dumping the contents out again.

Recently Isaac has begun to put things back in their place. With great encouragement on our part, he'll put blocks back into their box. He likes the praise, and he likes to set the box up in preparation to be emptied again, he can't resist scattering them. Isaac Rygg Entropy Ellis. Speaking of entropy, coffee tables, low alcoves, bookcases are regularly swept clean of their contents. Isaac waves his arms back and forth like windshield wipers on any surface he can reach. Once the area is sufficient 'cleaned' he moves onto his next target.

Still no definite words, but he likes to copy the sounds we make. He'll copy "ahhs" and "ooos" and grins ear to ear when we repeat the sounds he makes. He does say "da da da" and I think at times he really is referring to his Daddy. Yesterday I heard the front door open while I was upstairs with Isaac. "Daddy's home!" I exclaimed to Isaac who was happily playing on the floor by my feet. "Da Da Da Da!" he squealed excitedly and crawled over to the stairs. We have yet hear "ma ma ma," but I'm eagerly waiting.

Isaac has been cruising around furniture for a while and occasionally he'll stand unsupported when he doesn't realize he's doing it. As soon as he senses no support he falls to his rump or knees. He isn't as intent on learning to walk as Matthew was. Looking back, I can't believe that Matthew was walking at 9 1/2 months. Crazy! As for Isaac, crawling can get him wherever he wants to go and seems to suit him just fine for now. Perhaps he'll have fewer bumps on the head than his big brother did.

Daddy's Boy

With Isaac perched on my lap and I repeated, "Mama, Mama, Mama!" He flashed a toothy grin and replied, "Da da da da!"

Verbiage

Matthew is developing language skills at what his mother informs me is a normal rate. I wouldn't know. I do know that although his baby-slurred vocabulary has been increasing, sometimes very quickly, I've been wishing he'd start putting sentences together for quite a while now.

For a long time his only phrase has been "wherza," as in, "wherza ball? wherza socks? wherza dog?" etc. He picked that one up since his idea of Baby Heaven is to spend all day outside, and to go outside, he needed shoes. So naturally his demented father would go around the house trying to figure where Matthew last concealed his shoes, all the while saying, "wherza shoes?" Matthew got the hang of this in short order and eventually saw how it applied in general.

A couple days ago he came up with his second phrase. He's known what "hot" is for a while, but it's always been used more or less as a noun in its own right. The other night his mom made him some eggs for dinner and he proclaimed, "eggs hot!"

You have to be a parent to understand how irrationally proud I was.