This evening Tovar informed me:

"I need my space!"

( Read more... )

Tovar's longest generated word string so far, from today, at 25.5/22.5 months:

"It's a bottle, I found it!"

(Tovar was repeatedly putting a bottle in a cupboard and then getting excited to rediscover it and take it back out)

Our nanny, Belen, had been sick for the past week and was back today. Once he got over his waking up from a nap blues, he told her:

"I miss you Belen."

On a less sweet but equally cute note, when three year old Peter was visiting the other evening, Tovar was heard telling him:

"Stop, that's my toy!"

His favorite book now is Snuggle Puppy, which is super endearing, thanks starling321 for the tip. Tovar knows it pretty much by heart at this point and recites it enthusiastically... hearing a toddler proclaiming "Snuggle puppy, I LOVE YOU!" is precious beyond words :)

He's also been really into giving people hugs and kisses on the cheek. In fact, the last time he saw his babysitter he insisted on a kiss before allowing her to leave ;)

We're still seeing terrible two tantrums, and hitting is a bit of a problem, but its died down over the past few days. I think he was upset because of the turmoil going on with the family, so now that its calming down he is too.

After his first four word sentence that I'd heard, yesterday, Tovar seems today to be well versed in them. I've heard at least a half dozen. The first one that surprised me was when instead of "I see you," He said "I can see you."

Another funny one was repeating after me at the supermarket when I said to the cashier, "I'll pay for it." Or as he joyfully proclaimed, "I pay for it!"

The peek-a-boo one could potentially be counted as five words, since he added "I can see you, Tovar" when he repeated himself, but I think he was just recounting the days events and it didn't seem quite as intentional as other cases.

Tovar is now consistently up to H on the ABC song.

Tovar will have his second birthday in about a week (21 months adjusted). He can now spell his name!

Or rather, if you write it, he will tell you what each letter is:

Tovar: T!
Mama: writes T
Tovar: O!
Mama: writes O
etc.

He can also identify the letters of his names in capitals in magazine titles and other large text formats, and he's quickly learning a few other letters as well, such as "J, Joe-Joe!"

Tovar can conjugate! At least a little! ;)

I'd noticed that when someone would say to him "You got it!" He'd respond "I got it!!!"

Today I heard him do that with a new sentence. Patri said to me "He dropped it." And Tovar piped in "I dropped it!!!" So, not only do we know that he really is conjugating, but it also shows that his repeating sentences isn't pure parroting. He may or may not know what "dropped" means, but he seems to understand the difference between a sentence and a long word :)

Additionally, Belen is teaching him "our." Since Tovar likes to proclaim "my phone" and things of that nature, when playing with her phone or glasses, Belen has taught him to refer to them as "our phone" and "our glasses" (he can say glasses correctly now, although he still calls them gagas a lot). Belen is also trying to teach him politeness, with please and thank you. He'll do it for her, but knows that he can get away without it with the rest of us and usually does ;)

Tovar has been kicking booty on the three word sentences today!

With some of them, its unclear whether he sees them as one long word v.s. a string of words. One of the ones I hear him say most often is "I got it!!" Or "I got you." "I got it" is usually said pretty appropriately, when someone gives him something or other situations of that nature. "I got you" is typically shouted when gleefully running toward or away from someone ;)

He also said several three word sentences that he did clearly put together himself. One of the more amusing ones this afternoon was when his Uncle James tried to borrow Tovar's camera to take a picture. Tovar responded with a shoulder block and the sentence: "My camera, James!"

At this point Tovar can repeat most words he hears on the first try, more or less ;) However, he has several words that he still substitutes or refuses to say.

1. Apples and Oranges. He calls all fruit apples. If he sees an orange, he says "apple." If you tell him its an orange, he corrects you and tells you "apple." This morning I was just telling this story to xleste, "Tovar refuses to say the word orange" and Tovar chimed in "Apple!!" ;) Dad also tells me how at school they have a chart with all kinds of different fruits: kiwis, mangos, etc.. Tovar likes to go through the chart, pointing to each piece of fruit, saying apple.

2. Tovar and Baby. He won't say his name. Won't even try. He'll still occasionally call himself baby, but I've never once heard him try to say Tovar, even though he definitely knows its his name and responds to it. When I try to get him to say it he just looks at me blankly.

3. Nipples and Mana. Tovar loves to point to Daddy's nipples and call them "Mana." No matter how much we say nipple to him, they remain mana. We asked Belen about it, and she said that mana means "What is this?" in Amharic.

4. Penis and Mana. Tovar also used to call his penis "Mana." This one has actually changed. He now calls it his "menis."

Tovar is closing in on 21 months (18 adjusted).

One of the coolest things, for me, has been a sudden spike in his cuddliness and mommy love.( Read more... )

So I think I journaled about T liking Motrin before. This time was impressive. He's been teething and I'd just put him to bed about a half hour prior, when he started fussing.

When I walked in, he stopped fussing, and immediately commanded: "Motrin! Motrin!!!"

;)

Given that that would have been what I would have done anyway, I went and got the medicine as requested, which seems to have done the trick :)

At this point I usually tell people that he's a year and a half, because honestly, I no longer keep track of his regular v.s. adjusted age very well, and 1.5 yrs is about in the middle :)

He's now walking quite competently, although his walk tends to be tilted forward, so its actually kind of a run ;)

He's gotten very good with names recently, including saying "bye-bye person's name," which he did very clearly the past few days!

We have to give everyone Tovar appropriate names though. Our friend Cyndi was visiting us the other day, and I tried telling T to say "Hi Cyndi" to her, and he scowled at us, which is what he generally does now when someone suggests he say a name that he's not capable of. So, I figured that he can't make the Cyn sound, but he can make a good Dee sound, so I suggested he call her Dee Dee, which resulted in his grinning at her and saying her "name," Dee Dee! Dee Dee! Over and over ;)

He adores our housemate, xleste, who is known to him as Gikky. He recognizes her in a picture of her and her sister, and likes to point to her and say her name, although when he pointed to her (adult) sister, he referred to her as "baby" ;)

His favorite words these days are "book" and "apple." I'd guess he has about a 40 to 50 word vocabulary, but we don't keep track. Other favorites are: ham, meat, out, up, down, open, marker, no, all done, apple juice (pronounced aww ju), aquaphore, baby, mama, dada, ouch, phone, button, pants, ball, baba, and milk.

Plus he does many animal sounds including: neigh, baa, maa, whoo, and is starting to work on oink, woof, meow, ruff ruff ruff, etc.

Additionally, he has about a dozen words in Amharic, a few in vietnamese, and is an excellent mimic, typically saying a new word every day although often without continued repetition.

In short, T is kicking booty at this talking stuff, and we're very proud of him ;)

Patri gave Tovar his no-longer-working cell phone, which Tovar has been walking around the living room with, gleefully announcing "Mine! Mine! Mine!"

He's been doing that with other things over the past couple of weeks or so, but it wasn't until this that I could really admit to myself that he did know the meaning. I'm not even sure how he learned it, since I don't know of anyone talking like that to him... I guess I probably told him "sorry Tovar, that's mine" about a few things over time, but I didn't realize he was paying such astute attention ;)

Thanks to laughingstone, we now have video of Tovar's mad Pat the Bunny skillz ;)

I normally remove things I don't want T to play with from his area, or remove him from them, depending on what the thing is. I also generally avoid telling him "no," largely based on the many horror stories I've heard about kids saying no all the time, and also based on what I've learned from observing beth_leonard and some reading I've done on alternate strategies (how bout you have this instead?).

A few days ago I was especially grumpy and told Tovar "No!!" twice. He spent the rest of the day saying "No!!" with a similar tone of authority, and I figured it was the beginning of the end.

However, its been really great since then! ( Read more... )

Tovar has been growing and changing rapidly, of course, but its harder to report these days, since it seems to be more subtle changes. He'd been taking some steps prior, but he took his first continuous 18 steps last week ;) And he's been showing all sorts of new expressions all the time, but a few days ago he started glaring.

The glaring is hilarious. ( Read more... )

So a week or two ago, I told Tovar he I was getting "Chicken" for him, and he responded: "Ducky!"

At first I thought it was coincidence, but still, over a week later, whenever I say chicken to him, he responds by saying "Ducky!"

Although a couple of days ago he started saying the word "chicken" as well, so he now uses both to refer to the meat he so likes ;)

His mimicry has gotten very good recently. I think he's averaging one or two new words/day, although he only tends to repeat them for about fifteen minutes after learning them in most cases, until he hears them again. However, he does seem to know meaning with word during the time he repeats, since he's usually paying attention to the thing he's naming. Today's word was vacuum :)

[edit]

Tovar just learned the word "bite" ;) He thought it was really cool that I let him take bites out of my apple. I should try to remember that for "bite apples not people" ;) He doesn't bite very often, but about every month or so he finds a new spot on my body that he thinks is worth trying out ;) Generally responding by saying a short ouch and walking away has done the trick thus far...

Aquaphor!

I was applying some ointment because he had a little diaper rash, and while not super clear, he repeated the word with all three syllables distinct after I told him about it :) He also said "Ack-a" and pointed at the ointment tub several more times after we were finished :)

[edit]

He just repeated "apple juice" twice!

He already knew "apple," but this three syllable stuff is pretty cool :)

Despite our thinking that he's been on the verge of walking for a month or two now, Tovar has still not been very interested in doing so.

However, he is starting to get very good at walking while pushing things! I saw him stand up and push a chair across the carpet for several feet today, as well as a box and a toy cart.

Other things he's getting good at:

-Defeating our gating system. He can now just pick up the plastic gate and move it.
-Climbing over the beanbag. Again, used to block him off from getting to the fireplace. He now scales it effortlessly ;)
-Running the dishwasher. (Its great that he likes to do chores, but unfortunately he doesn't know how to fill it or add soap before turning the dial, which he does often ;)
-Words. Patri and I have not even tried to track his vocab. He has words that come and go: he'll use them in context for a few days, and then we won't hear them for a week or two. Currently, his favorites are "open," which he uses to refer to opening doors, "up," as always, and "all done!" Which can signify being done with a bottle, the end of the book, or just a general please stop. He also says "baba," although usually only in response to my asking him if he wants it: he still usually just makes unpleasant noises when he's hungry until I respond ;)

Today when we were at Diddums he impressed another lady in the store by saying "open, open!" as he grabbed at a puzzle I'd given him, trying to get to the toy door under the plastic wrap ;)