Speaking Toddler
Friday, March 28th, 2014From Friday Mom – Erin:
Rory is in the early stages of learning to communicate. He is a typical toddler in that he has begun to express pretty strong preferences. In some ways, this is a very good thing. For example, he has started to shake his head no to tell us that he is done with his dinner. This is much better than his previous technique of saying “all done”… throwing everything remaining on his tray onto the floor. But it isn’t perfect.
So far, the majority of his communication has been pretty basic. On the downside, he has started to gesture pretty forcefully. As a result, we have to keep the counters fairly clear during dinner time—otherwise he’ll spend the majority of the meal asking to sample what ever is sitting on the counter, even if it isn’t edible. On more than one occasion, an unanswered gesture has given way to a complete meltdown.
Luckily, he has also started actually speaking a few words, as well. “Ball” was his first, but now he says “up,” “bye-bye,” “hi,” and “uh-oh,” and is working on some others like “all done” and “no.” His daddy swears he says mama when I leave the room, but I’ve only heard it on a few occasions (he says daddy all the time). His grandmother swears she heard him say “thank you” last weekend while they were visiting, but I am somewhat skeptical.
I find it fascinating to hear Rory develop his own little voice. More often than not his babbles carry the intonation of a full conversation but are completely incoherent. This babble is doubly entertaining when we drop him off at school and he begins chattering with his classmates. We’re continuing to read to him, working on teaching him bit by bit. But mostly we’re enjoying hearing the next thing to come out of his tiny little mouth. I know it won’t be long before he’s vocalizing his demands loudly, so I guess I should try to enjoy the silence as well.
