Spoken like a true toddler

I've been using this blog to document the little guy's language development. In the last few weeks he's started adding new elements to his speech. For instance, he now identifies who he's talking to:

"I want an orange, Mommy"

"Thank you for big fire truck, Daddy"

He now likes to make comparisons. For example, the other day told us he was swimming on the bed. To clarify, he said, "Pretend swimming. Not real." And when he saw the scary totem poles and masks at the museum, he was comforted when he was told that they weren't real.

His other favourite comparison is fresh vs. dirty. "Fresh diaper!" he yells while we're changing him. At night he picks up his water bottle and says, "Water dirty, mommy. I want fresh water."

But I think that perhaps the most amazing development is how he now links his sentences to express more complex ideas. A good example of this was on New Year's eve. We were at a party, and he didn't want to leave because he was having too good of a time. As a stalling tactic he said, "Daddy, can you tell the people on the couch to move? I'll sleep on the couch."


*******************************

Baby boy went back to daycare this week. When the caregiver asked him what he had done on his holidays he replied excitedly, "I bought groceries!"

Apparently grocery shopping was much more noteworthy than going to the farm; the children's museum, the art gallery, seeing a waterfall, visiting the horse stables, tobogganing, playing at the park, eating sushi, buying and x-mas tree and decorating it, making pasta, baking pretzels, opening a billion toys on x-mas morning etc....

********************************

At the art gallery there is a sculpture of a gigantic newborn baby. It looks real, save for its elephant-like proportions. Baby boy stopped in his tracks when he saw it. When he realized it was "pretend not real" he bravely went in for a closer look. He didn't say anything for a while. But after inspecting the umbilical cord, he pronounced very loudly so that his voice could echo throughout the gallery, "Look mommy. Giant baby has penis!" When I explained to him that it was an umbilical cord he said, "Baby penis bilical cord."

:-)