Jack's Expanding Vocabulary

Our little guy has always been loud, proud, and in charge - but now he's learning many more words and phrases. Some of his newest ones include:

• "Elmo" ... which comes out more like "Ma mo" because he can't quite say it right. I bought him this super cute book, Elmo's Twelve Days of Christmas, where you flip through and it gets harder and harder to find Elmo on each page. Jack and I can spend hours on the floor together flipping through this book with him hunting for "Ma Mo" and then laughing hysterically when he can point him out.
• Odd syllables, like "qu" and "baw." He babbles a lot, repeating the same syllable over and over again, like he's rolling it around on his tongue until it comes out just right. I don't know what words he's trying to immitate but he definitely knows new sounds!
• "Duck" - which he actually says quite well. He can also point out a duck in any situation and yells it over and over again.
• "Water" - still not too good at this one, it comes out more like "waaaaaa qua" ... but he's usually pointing at the sink or the fridge, so he definitely knows what it is.
• Various other short words and phrases. He amazes me when he mimicks my sounds when I am talking to him (I keep up a steady stream of chatter to him at most times because that's what the doctor said increases his speech patterns.)

He also has some funny new personality quirks. When we are driving home at night from daycare, I usually listen to a few of the same CD's. As I scroll through the songs, he will say "no" to the ones he doesn't want to hear... and then bob his head up and down ("dancing") to the ones he likes. It's adorable!

He loves his bath so much now that when we go to get his towel down from the hook, he literally SWIMS over to the other side of the tub and then hunches all up so that it's impossible to grab him. This is usually followed by a lot of loud screaming as we get him out of the tub.

And finally ... how, you ask, is the weaning going?

Well ... partially good. We have successfully done away with the morning bottle and switched to a sippy cup. He doesn't seem to mind all that much. We are still struggling to get him off the right-before-bed bottle, but we are hoping that in the next week he will be totally off them. What can I say - you win some, you lose some.