Words

Our son is a talker. He has been babbling like crazy for as long as I can remember. Here is a video of him at three months old jabbering away to his daddy:

For the past several months, his vocabulary has grown significantly. While I was at the doctor's office two months ago waiting for a prenatal check-up, I saw on their TV that a child should know approximately fifty words by the time he/she is two years old. Knowing that Caleb was already saying several words, I wondered if he was anywhere close to fifty so I began listing them. Several of you have asked what he's saying now so I decided to share the list with you. While he repeats most of the things we say, I only listed the words I think he "owns" (i.e. words I've heard him say multiple times and/or feel he understands to some degree). It isn't an exhaustive list but is what I could remember to jot down for the time being. Here they are:

do, go, get, come, eat, clock, car, truck, boat, butter, pizza, peanut butter, cookie, bread, biscuit, cracker, egg, waffle, french fry, cheese, peach, orange, pumpkin, milk, ice, pickle, candy cane, drink, bite, snack, cup, bowl, spoon, please, thank you, bubble, blue, red, white, pink, green, Da-da and Daddy, Ma-ma, Na-na, pop (and Pop Pop), Granny, Grandma, Peppaw, Courtney, Max, Cole, Luke, Susie, Celeste, Bo, Bob (and Sponge Bob), Ginger, down, up, out, gate, again, book, ball, Elmo, Bert, Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Clifford, big, bird (and Big Bird), more, bug, bee, cat, meow, kitty, dog, woof, pig, goose, bear, deer, cock-a-doodle-doo, neigh, cow, moo, goat, sheep, baa, duck, quack, chicken, cluck, bock, mouse, squeak, moose, owl, fish, crab, giraffe, elephant, kids, teacher, bad, good, mean, hat, shoe, shirt, coat, socks, boots, pants, ear, eye, nose, hair, back, bellybutton, neck, hand, no, pugh-wee, stinky, gross, hi, hey, bye-bye, nigh-night, boo, TV, bath, shower, woo-woo (aka pacifier), keys, man, baby, girl, rug, hold, kick, dip, dump, death,beep, hot, cold, clip, sit, tractor, rock, balloon, moon, Bumbo, crayon, close, move, help, crawl, mower, downstairs, upstairs, ready, pretty, tree (and Christmas tree), trashcan, high, breakfast, pillow, blanket, choo choo, Ho Ho (as in Santa), monster, Bandaid, telephone, star, shake, light, wide

All of these words aren't pronounced perfectly clear, but I can usually figure out what he's saying. For example, if you look back at my pumpkin carving post Caleb says "pump pump" for pumpkin. He also says Melmo instead of Elmo, something like Clicka for Clifford, blues for blueberries, and Gangee for Granny. Hearing the cute mispronunciations makes watching the learning process even better.

One of his favorite things to talk about is books. Caleb is a very interactive reader; he comments on what's on the pages and likes to point out things that are the same or different. I tried for weeks to get a good video of him reading but he didn't cooperate as well as I'd planned. While he's a bit shy in this video, it does a somewhat decent job of showing how we read Brown Bear, Brown Bear together:

He also likes to play computer games and talk about them. In this video he is repeating the different animals and tries to say the alphabet at the end:

There are a few words that just melt my heart though. I love hearing him say Mama of course as well as the names of other family members. Secondly, "please" and "thank you" are two of the sweetest words that come out of that boy's mouth. He's pretty irresistible, especially for Na Na and Granny, when he tilts his little head and looks up at you and says "please" it a tiny voice. He often uses these without prompting now. Don't worry this video is much shorter than the other two:

(I hope you enjoyed the videos. I lost the Flip on our vineyard excursion a couple months ago so there haven't been many videos to post lately. I'm thankful for a new one to catch all these things Caleb is learning to do.)