My Little Chatterbox

Over the past several weeks Chris and I have had the joy of listening to Sam's communication skills grow by leaps and bounds. Not only is he picking up lots of new words, he's using them more intently and, most of the time, properly. We can get him to repeat almost any word we say, and sometimes he repeats words we don't intend for him to say. Last night he spent five minutes repeating "Oh. My. Gosh." at the dinner table. Oops.

Most of the time things are still coming out as one word, which I can interpret as an entire sentance. A mother's gift. We are encouraging him to put two and three words together, especially when it comes to attaching a descriptive word to "please." Three words is still pretty hard, perhaps because its most often encourage during discipline. You see, I make him repeat the offense he is NOT supposed to commit so I know that HE knows why we are in time out. "No Throw Cup" usually comes out "no no ... cup ... no frow ... no cup."

Its precious, though, because you can see how hard he is concentrating. He is working so hard to get it right. I feel like I can actually see the wheels turning. At lunch today he tried 6 times to pronounce a word right, without my even asking him to. He knew it wasn't right, and wasn't going to stop until he got the right combination of sounds. He has always been one that is only able to really focus on improving one skill at a time, and right now that skill is speaking!

Not only is it fun to hear him talk more, its helpful. Recently amidst a fit of hysterical, inconsolable tears he was able to utter the word daw-per (diaper). Yup, raging diaper rash, but no poop in there. Would have taken us a while to find that one. Or at least it would have felt like a while with all of the hysterical, inconsolable tears.

Of course, it also adds a new challenge to parenting. I can no longer give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to disobedience. He understands, there is no question. And the word "no" tests the limits of my patience, endurance and faith.

But I guess I'll take all the no's, as long as they keep coming with requests to "carry you" (carry me), praises of "ni kick" (nice kick!) and recaps of an entire day is 10 words or less, that really only he and I can understand :-)