Wow – this has been the month of language explosion!  It’s been hard to keep up and the notes I made are but a fraction of what Z said.  Emergent language is one of my favorite development stages, *by far*. And the look on Z’s face when you understand what he’s saying is priceless!  

Is it Blue or brown or pink?  These are his favorite colors these days.  The flowers are blooming in our neighborhood so we have a lot of opportunities to practice colors and these are his “go to” choices.  Fun!

Most memorable word: Sam!  he said it on April 19 in a sing-songy tone. Sa-Sama!  He’s been calling Sam “Es” since he was about 12 months old but now he can say all the sounds.  :)

Other words that are now part of Z’s vocabulary:

Pengba – his word for his penguin/favorite stuffed animal

Home

I know

See 

Touch ( he learned with w/r/t Looey the class hamster as he was not allowed to touch Looey)

Hoop – loves basketball and he has a hoop in the backyard

Camera – he actually talks more about the camera that is mounted on his wall as part of the baby monitoring system we have than the photo camera.  He has figured out that it moves and that he can move it if he has the touch screen control panel.  It’s like his own little iPod :).

Yep – a personal fave of mine.

yay, wow, whoa!

4/14. Dig

4/18: Firetruck

One of my all time faves – Woo wee bite (Looey the hamster) – and then he made a biting noise

4/25: with grandma: star, pull, I know, door, sings twinkle twinkle with words  

4/26: pull

Nurse (and he hasn’t nursed since 4/12) so I didn’t know what he was saying. He walked in to our room and showed me by pointing @ the blue chair and getting my pillow.  But he only nursed for a second before getting up again and going back to his room.  

4/26:  Door

4/27:  Pour

4/28: both for the first time, big

4/29: Wedgehead (toy), Me!

4/30:  Dunk, HOld, Done, milk, eat – both legs for sunscreen, both banana peels, these, keys, blueberry

5/1: by himself he said frog and read :) and something that sounded like English when I was pointing @ his Chinese bilingual book, chair, duck

said Walrus after I said it while reading a book

broken & wash

5/2: Play, Do, Pointed at horse & bunny & asked “what’s that” & he answered

5/3: strawberry, which sounded a lot like garbage at first but by Friday it was clear as day.  A part of the routine each morning and PM is that we go pick strawberries from our garden and they have been *prolific* this year.  Not sure what Z will do when the season ends (but thankfully that is still months away).

Fun conversation in the car:

Me: do you see diggers over there Z?

 Z: two!  Wow!

5/4: sentence:  Strawberries Pick (in our garden), Eat

May 5th week:

Pink

Bird bath (after i said it)

Says Looey “woo wee” – Looey is the class hamster in SPL’s class.  Since a classmate is allergic to mammals, Looey has become a roving hamster staying at different kid’s houses for 1 week at a time.  

Says Yay! Repeatedly

dump, pink, brown, orange ,blue, red, green, yellow (though not always accurately)

strawberries, pick, help

5/6: drink, go, do (as in do it myself – he loves doing the carseat seatbelt now by himself), see 

May 11 – phone, soap, bowl, me!, pepper, home, summer (singing along with Olaf on the sound track playing on our Sonos and spreading his hands wide :)

Books:

Z continues to love Inside Outside Upside Down & he’s been completing the final phrase of many sentences:

Going _______ (In) 

_____ a truck (On)

Inside outside __________ (Upside down)

Started anticipating stories : inside outside upside down.  He says “out” and “mama mama” :)

Completing phrases in chugs chugga:

Around the mountains high and steep, throught the valleys low and _____ (deep)

Across the river swift and wide a bridge goes to the other _____  (side)

Chugga Chugga Choo Choo there’s the _____ (City)

Favorite books: inside outside & Harry the dirty dog, plus Mistress Mouse

Songs:

Sings twinkle twinkle little star now

Says more in Chinese (see video above):

5/7: yi, er, san (one two three), bú yao (don’t want), sha lī (get down), shen da (new) (as in new diaper)

5/5: pu tou (grape), bō luó (pineapple in chinese); 

Anticipates the words in Twinkle twinkle in Mandarin

Transportation preferences– doesn’t want to ride in car, prefers wagon or trike or plastic car

Z and SPL also have fun wearing “buddy shirts” and “buddy pjs”.  Here they are walking to carpool together with their tiger shirts on.

Pouring is still a big focus for Z and he gets a lot of practice with water time outside in our yard, digging in the garden, and playing in the bath.

He still loves following trash trucks around the neighborhood so we do that every Thursday.  

Fridays are our school day and we go together from 9:15-11:30 am.  

Z has really gotten in to the songs lately and joins in with hand motions for Wheels on the Bus, Wind Your Bobbin, and other songs that Teacher Monica sings.

We also have been having fun watching the demolition and construction projects in our neighborhood this month.  There is one at the end of our street and then one over on a nearby street.  Z loves all the diggers and the workers even will open the big gate so Z can get a better look :).

Can’t believe he’ll be 2 in a month!