Burhds

For those of you who don't speak "toddlerese," 'burhds' translates into "birds." Stone had great breakthrough in his speech yesterday! We had gotten out of the car and had put him down on the driveway. He looked over across the yard, pointed, and clearly said "buhrds." I was so excited and praised him repeatedly--I don't think he knew what the big deal was. Especially since I don't remember specifically teaching him that word!

Then, later that day as we sat down for dinner, he heard the neighbor's dogs barking. He pointed to the window and said, "dog." Again, I got so excited and he just looked at me like I was crazy! I know most of you are thinking, "what's the big deal?" For me, it is a big deal even though these are not his first words because now, he is really linking words to objects and naming them. Before, he would say words and some he knew, but others I think he was just repeating. Also, it's been very hard for me to not compare him to his cousin Mercy, who is only 3 months older than him, but extremely verbal (she was saying 2 word sentences shortly after turning 1 and now can say long sentences and repeat almost any word you give her, including 'encyclopedia.') I know you're not supposed to compare children, and I have had to really work hard on not doing that, but still, when you are around her, you're amazed at her vocabulary. I was just trying to be happy that Stone was saying "dadda" and "mamma." But then, I got to a point where I was wondering why he wasn't speaking more. As I've said before about him, " I guess he's just holding out on us!"

Finally, before going to bed, Kevin picked him up and Stone pointed to Kevin's eye and said, "eye." He likes this word a lot and usually points to your nose and mouth and says "eye" too, but this time, he just said eye to Kevin's eye. Cool deal. Who knew--our kid can talk!