Language development

Henry's language development simply continues to amaze me. It seems to be all that I write about these days, but it is truly what is growing and changing so rapidly for us right now.

What I has intrigued with his language is the different ways he seems to add new words to his vocabulary. For a long time, he would watch very carefully as you would say a word he was interested in and try to imitate the exact movements of your lips or tongue in order to replicate the sound. Rarely, do I notice this intense watching now, sometimes he does it when we are singing, instead he just seems to say the sounds. He has built enough sounds into his memory well enough now I guess.

Now, the new words seem to come in one of two ways. Most of the time he will just repeat back a word you have just said, then it will be in his vocabulary for use. Occasionally, he will ask for the word to be repeated, it seems like a little reminder to him about the word and then he will say it.

The second way is for a word to just seem to appear in his vocabulary that he has never used before as if it has always been there. An example, is the word porch. We had never heard Henry say porch, but the other night at dinnertime, we asked him to set the table. We gave him forks and pointed to the dining room table and said to put them out. He took the forks and headed for the door saying porch. He wanted to eat on the porch and we did by the way. It is just amazing to me that he has been observing and then can just fill the appropriate word at the right time.

Enough of my talking here are the new words if anyone actually cares besides us:

window
shirt
porch
shave-sav
George
bus

New Words 4/25/2010

pet
sit- Henry will direct Aubie the dog to sit now before giving him a treat
Panda
Bamboo
turtle
bunny-monny
money
Isaiah
remote-mote
TV-tb
Tom/SupTom
Karl-Tawrl
Jet
people
cake-Take
cracker-tacter
cookie-tookie
nap
nightnight
eat

He has not gotten a good hold on the C/K sounds as you might have noticed they are mostly T sounds for now. He can string words together and get across his point when communicating. Even with the growth in his verbal language he has started to sign the word eat which he also says.

Update to the word list:
stick
egg

He also signs all-done.

Cosy Cycle

We have had so much fun riding around in the cosy cycle these past few days. Our wonderful friends Carol and Gary were kind enough to let us use their cosy cycle while they are away. We had never seen a bicycle like this one before and we excited to try it out.

It is really easy to ride and so much fun to be able to talk to each as you peddle along. You can't get up a lot of speed but you can move pretty fast.Gary rigged up the car seat for his grandson Lukas and Henry is benefiting from it. Henry really enjoys the car seat in the basket for a ride. He is so close we can interact with him as we ride.

One of the best parts of riding the cosy cycle is the looks you get from people as you ride by.

Hopefully there will be more to come on the cosy cycle in the near future. Thank you Gary and Carol!

New Words 4/13/2010

Andrew-Anju or Andu
Tom-Aubie
Thank You-Tank ku
sheep
cow

Growing Up

Henry has made some dramatic changes in the last few weeks. He is really beginning to grow out of being a toddler and moving into being a little boy. He even likes to call himself a big boy now.I have to admit it is bit sad to see my baby growing so quickly but it still never ceases to captivate me how wonderful and amazing the process is.

As you have seen Henry's language is growing day by day and we are enjoying that he can communicate more with us. This communication has brought about one of his biggest changes that honestly I was not ready for and that is potty training. I was hoping he would potty train this summer, but he seems ready now. I also know that this could be a phase and he could lose interest. Never the less, we are encouraging him when he does ask to go and are so proud that he is doing it. It is also wonderful to see how proud he is of himself and he loves his big boy training pants and flushing the toilet.

He has learned to help set the table for meals. It is so cute to watch him put the silverware around at each place. He modeling so many of our behaviors and learning so quickly how to do things.

He enjoys his riding toys and has learned to steer them. He rides around a small circle in the house with them and loves to take them outside for a ride. He can throw and kick a ball and pull his wagon too. He can even walk down a couple of steps without holding on, however this still makes me nervous.

He is basically sleeping through the night too. Daniel puts him to bed at night now and most nights there is not much fussing if any. Sometimes he wakes up but we cuddle and he goes back to sleep. It is nice to have him right in the room with us at night, and it is also nice to be sleeping better. I can't imagine him being so far away in another room. It was not as dramatic of a transition as I thought it would be, but maybe we were just finally ready.

I just can't quite believe sometimes that he is so big already.

Gardening

Our plot

Today we visited our Meadowbrook plot to enjoy the sun and play around a bit. When we began to check out our plot we noticed a strange cluster of straw and fur between our Kohlrabi and lettuce plants. Upon inspection we found a little nest with four baby rabbits. I know you really don't want bunnies in your garden, but they are so very cute. We are going to wait until they leave and then secure the fence along the bottom to prevent them from coming back for snacks.

Baby rabbits

Henry loves going out the garden and playing in the dirt. He is likes to take his toto's (tools) and dig and roll around in the dirt.

Dirty Henry

He also helps plant seeds. You might not know where he plants them, but he sure enjoys taking seeds and putting them in the dirt.

Henry plants onions.

New Words 4/11/2010

fork-ork
knife-ni
table
cup-tup
car- czar or tar sort of
out

New Words 4/10/2010

umbrella- brelalala
animals- anmals
online
pepper
blue-bu

New Words 4/7/2010

paper
name
sweep- weep
Kate
peepee
poop




Can you tell Henry is starting to go potty now?

Easter

Henry enjoyed a rather simple Easter. The Easter bunny did hop by with a few goodies for him. I think his favorite was the spinning toothbrush. He loves to brush his teeth now when we do and will brush for several minutes. This is good because he has a mouth full of teeth. He is only missing the two year molars which we think he is working on now.


We went to the Church's Easter egg for hunt for the little guys and Henry had fun opening the eggs. He walked in picked up the first one he saw and stopped looking. He was focused on opening that egg and did not really care to gather more eggs. It was nice. Unfortunately the big kid and little kid eggs were switched and he got chocolate candy and the big kids got animal crackers. Of course once he got the egg open he proceeded to unwrap the chocolate and eat it so, he got chocolate down the front of his shirt. At least he got to wear the outfit for a few minutes and it all washes.


We also had an egg hunt at home that evening with friends and he enjoyed . He learned to peel a boiled egg at our little hunt. It was a lovely dinner with kids playing and wonderful friends to talk with.

New words 4/5/2010

Some of these he has actually said for a while but I keep forgetting to record them

plate
spoon
oatmeal- omel
eat
people
big boy

Playing with Lukas

We were lucky enough to have Carol and Gary with their daughter Annemarie and grandson Lukas over for dinner last week. Lukas is four months younger than Henry and lives in California. The boys had a lot of fun playing with each and laughed a lot. They really enjoyed the pushing and riding toys and would trade back and forth. Sometimes Henry would just take a toy from Lukas, but overall they shared fairly well.

Here are some pictures from Gary of the boys together.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gcziko/sets/72157623634015297/show

New Words 4-1-2010

House
spaceship- I can't spell the way he says it but you know what he is talking about when he does and he used it for pictures of most jets and rockets. As well as his little space shuttle toy.
book
teacher
tail


He likes to read his version of Brown Bear Brown Bear to you. He has a word or sound for almost every page.