Word Explosion

Right around 18 months, Marlo's language skills really started taking off. Before that point, I had considered posting a list of her words. I never got around to it, and now I'm not sure I could. She is adding vocabulary constantly, the words seemingly coming from nowhere. A lot of her words have to do with food. Her first complete sentence, uttered the other day, was "I want cheese." Today she said "cereal" for the first time, and fairly clearly too. In honor of the holiday goodies everywhere, she tries to say "chocolate." It's a little garbled, but I know what she means. As an aside, she's the only child I know who can become a complete mess by eating a single M&M.

Another fun language trick is announcing the word loudly. And repeatedly. We get a lot of "SNOW!!!!" Around age 2, also during the holiday season, Hayden would shout "IGHTS!!!" every time we drove past a house with Christmas lights, so it seems to be somewhat common. Marlo also says "TREE!!!" and that happens fairly frequently too.

Hayden was an early letter/number learner. I think he knew most of the letters by this age. Marlo gets that there are letters, but they are all apparently "D." She also likes to count, and it goes like this: "Two, Fwee, Two, Fwee, Two, Fwee."

In any case, she's a chatterbug. She talks all the time, sometimes intelligibly, sometimes not, but it's always fun. I'm going to attempt that word list now, even though I'll miss some and it will be long...but it will be fun to look at later.

Dexter, Mama, Dada, no, more, my, Hayden ("Daydee"), milk ("gaulk"), snack ("gack"), cheese, tree, down (which also means up), bottle ("bobble" and it means cup too), bath, book, TV, butt, eyes, belly button ("blah blah"-- said with tongue sticking out), baby, fish, snow, apple, bawk bawk, gobble gobble, ho ho ho, meow, moo, chocolate, cereal, shoes, socks, pants, shirt, hair, cracker, ball, beep, truck, choo choo, diaper, poo poo, potty, two, three, D, E I E I O, blanket (also pronounced "baby"), cold, light, spoon, bowl, all gone, bye bye, various people's names, backpack, coat, boots, hat, toes, owie, turkey, berry, please, thank you, excuse me ("excuse you"), paper, hot, brrrr, towel, door, block, stay, high chair, banana, Stella (all dolls are called "Stella," and she even says it like Marlon Brando), where are you? ("Are you?"), bus...