New Words 5/25/2010

So I think this might be the last post I make on new words for Henry. His language has started to grow so quickly I can’t keep up with the rate at which he gains new words. I can not even guess how many words he is gaining per day right now. He is building sentences and expressing ideas with multiple words. I am just in awe at his ability to communicate.

Here a few new ones that I can remember
Astronaut
up-down
in-out
open door
soap hand
soap hair
help
push-pull
all done
oven
pool
hot
neck
arm
stool
outside
kiss
work
ocean
more waves
hippo
monkey
elphant
giraffe
have it
henry have it
key
and anything else he wants to say and many different combination of words
HENRY

I remember

For the first time last week Henry told us about an event he remembered happening. Of course we know he has memory and an ability to recall things he has done. He shows off his memory all the time by continuing to use words he has learned or going back to an activity that he enjoyed in the past. This however was the first time he verbally expressed about an event that he had participated in in the past.

He climbed into bed to wake up Daniel the other morning and told him all about Gdada, Meme, ball, pool, no. From these words and the way he repeated them in certain orders Daniel was able to figure out what he was talking about. He was telling Daniel about going to the pool in Atlanta with my parents where he would throw the ball between pools, but could not go in the hot tub. Of course Daniel had to know about the event to put it together, but it was still lots of fun to see that he is beginning to be able to tell us about things that happened in the past.

Update:
I have to add, the word ball was often followed with Henry making the throwing motion with his arm.

Gardening is growing

We have been enjoying our little plot at Meadowbrook that Henry and I visit almost daily. It is so much fun to finally see things growing. We have onions, sugar peas, potatoes, lettuce, kale and kohlrabi already showing up.


We even had our first harvest this week when we thinned the lettuce a little. Henry enjoyed picking the lettuce or just that I finally let him pull something out of the ground. The lettuce made a nice little salad for dinner.

This week we also planted lots of new things. We added spinach, chard, carrots, and radish seeds. Henry of course loves to add the seed to the ground and cover them up. We even added tomatoes today. The plants were huge and were starting to take over our house so, it was nice to get them in the ground. They seem much happier there and we just hope for nice weather for them.

Henry's absolute favorite part of each garden trip is watering. He can't squeeze the trigger yet, thankfully, but he likes to help hold the hose. He even showed off a new skill of drinking out of the hose, which was lots of fun.

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