Talking.

Over the last couple months, Oliver has really made strides in the language department. Most of his words are (to me, at least) pretty useless but he has them nonetheless. But something I don't get, is how he comes up with his words.

Why does he say "poop" and "burp" but not "up" or "mommy" ? He says "my, my, my!" but not "eat", "food",  or "hungry."  The words I try hardest to teach him are the words he has no interest in saying. I get the feeling that most of his conversations are going to center around bathroom humor. (Which, unfortunately, I get enough of from his dad.)

Very rarely does he use the actual noun for what he means to say.

Horses? They're neigh neighs. Dogs are woof woofs. Ducks are quack quacks. Babies are mamas. Cars are sometimes cars, but more often vroom vrooms. Cold is Brr!

Since I caught on to that pattern, I've been trying harder to say the noun more often than the sound effect. Still, he seems to have no interest in nouns. For now, that's okay with me. At least it's something.

New words are always exciting. We've been working very hard on saying "please" instead of just shouting "more!" It was slow going for a while, but today he decided to make please his own.

He wanted Cheerios, so he pointed up and yelled "ease!" It worked. I got him Cheerios. He wanted a bite of my sandwich, so he pulled on my arm and said, "ease!" It worked again. Later I walked into the kitchen and closed the gate behind me. He reached through the bars and said "ease!" but I ignored him. When I started walking away, he only yelled "ease, Ease, EASE!" more. Later this afternoon, he climbed up onto the table via a stray chair. He was joyfully pulling the picture frames off the wall when I plucked him off the table and carried him to the couch. All the while he screamed, "EASE, EASE, EASE!"

Suddenly, the magic word "ease" lost its magic. If you can't use it to stand on top of the dining table, what good is it? WHY EVEN BOTHER TO HAVE THE WORD IF IT DOESN'T OPEN THE BABY GATE INTO THE KITCHEN!?

While we were flipping through family pictures, he tried to say his name for (as far as I'm aware) the first time. He called himself Allah. Great. People are going to love that.