With Grady’s first birthday rapidly approaching (party tomorrow and actual birthday Sunday), Amy and I were trying to tally up his quickly growing vocabulary, as well as some of the quirkier things he’s been doing lately. I already posted the first ten, and most are still in full force, so here’s the next batch of words:
- Bump. His mom says this one is from the “wheels on the bus” song. I say it’s from Daddy the human horsey. Both go bump, and if not, he makes a request.
- Shoes. Pronounced “zhooz.” Usually as he is taking them off and preparing to throw them somewhere, or as he is attempting to remove daddy’s sandals (hasn’t quite learned the difference).
- Banana. Or mostly “nana” for short. He saw one accross the room today and pointed, saying it until I caved in. Guess he wasn’t liking the mixed vegetables very much.
- Water. Read “wa-aa.” Good for drinking, throwing, or general comfort. We’re trying to avoid giving him juice–too much sucrose, and he eats plenty of fruit anyhow.
- More. Finally an adjective. Or adverb, depending on usage. He does the sign language for this one, too, holding all five fingers together and tapping both hands together.
- Bird. He likes to identify them in picture books and in our front yard.
- Bike. Has a big plastic one he likes to ride around, while saying the next word…
- Vroom. Ok, it’s not really a word, but he thinks that’s what cars are called. When he rides his bike or plays with little toy cars he says “vroom, vroom.” Just wait ’till he sees his birthday present! (I’ll post pictures).
- What. Last post he was pointing at things and saying “that” (dat) to ask what it was. Now he’s pointing at things and saying “what?” I’m glad he’s still eager to learn.
- Door. What can I say? The kid has his escape plans down already.
- Hello. He doesn’t say this to greet people. He associates it only with the telephone, usually his play telephone, which he holds to his ear and says “Ellooooo.”
- Bubble. His mom bought some of the bubbles you blow through the little plastic wand. He loves when she does that, and tries to catch all of them. We also bought him a helium-balloon the other day, and he first called it a “ball,” then a “bubble.”
- Hop and Go. While I’d like to include these separately and count them as verbs, he doesn’t get their true meanings yet. “Hop” is what he calls the Dr. Seuss book Hop on Pop, and “Go” is what he calls P.D. Eastman’s Go Dogs, Go. His two favorite books. Nouns.
Some other interesting things he does:
- I included “night night” in the last post. Lately when he falls down, if goes flat on the floor, he’ll give up and say “night night.” Then he gets right back up.
- For some crazy reason he loves washing his hands (we help him). He just really gets a kick out of that, laughing the whole time.
- He can’t say “monkey” yet, but whenever he sees one in a picture book, he goes “ooh, ooh, ooh” (the monkey sound). He also appropriately associates monkeys with word #13.
- He walks all over the place now, and even runs, often falling but not seeming to notice, stop, or care.
- Grady’s Groove. He has a little rhythm, and we don’t know where it came from. He’ll pick a syllable (say “ba”) and do this: baaa, baaa, ba-ba-ba. Over and over again. Sometimes it’s daaa, daaa, da-da-da, or even niiie, niiie, night-night-night. We call it “Grady’s Groove.” It even has different (and consistent) pitches, but that’s harder to reproduce here.
- He has a toothbrush, and even likes to use it. The first time Amy gave it to him, though, he immediately started brushing his hair with it.
Grandma and Grandad Sawyer are already in town for his birthday party tomorrow, and Grady Walker (for whom he was named) is flying in tomorrow morning. We’re having two cakes–one for Grady to stick his fingers, hands, arms, face, etc. in and another for everyone to actually eat. I’ll take plenty of pictures and post shortly.