Words, words, words

I received my weekly Babycenter email update on Will's development. Physically, he seems to be right on track, getting into everything, walking with confidence, etc. However, I had to laugh when I read this line: "At 14 months, your toddler understands many more words than she can say. Her spoken vocabulary likely consists of about three to five words, typically "Mama," "Dada," and one other simple word such as 'ball' or 'dog,' but she learns the meanings of new words every day." Three to five? Rolf and I made a list of the words Will says on a semi-regular basis, words he obviously understands and connects to objects around him.

1. Mama - he doesn't say this one often enough to my liking, although my mom said he saw my picture at her house and said, "mommy!" He prefers Dada.
2. Dada, Daddy, Da - he recognizes Rolf in pictures, and he grabs my cell phone, puts it on his shoulder, and says, "Da?"
3. Grandpa - he learned this one staying with Grandpa in MO
4. Grandma - he has two grandmothers called "Grandma," so this one is fairly easy for him
5. Grandad - he loves my dad, who has taken care of him several times when he's been sick
6. Bubbles - will request them from either the bubble machine or the bottle
7. Done-done - said with the accompanying baby sign, the only one he ever picked up
8. Down - when he is finished eating and wants out of his high chair
9. Bear - ashamed to say, this is not just when he sees a teddy bear, but also when he requests an episode of Bear in the Big Blue House. He'll even take the DVD case up to the TV and hold it up when he says it
10. Ball - one of Will's favorites. He'll point across a store and yell out "BAH!" if he sees some
11. Dog - Will, like his parents, loves dogs. We'll have to get a new one next summer, I guess
12. Bird - he learned this one in MO, watching the hummingbirds fly around his Grandma and Grandpa's porch. Also applies to Big Bird and any other bird in his books
13. Please - we taught him to say this as a request before he turned a year old. It sounds similar to his version of...
14. Cheese - his favorite food up to this point. Good thing he got over the lactose issue!
15. Read - R's are hard, though, so it sounds more like "byeed"
16. Outside - Will's favorite place
17. Door - he knows it will get him outside
18. Window - ditto for our sliding glass door
19-24. Moo, Baa, Bow-wow, neigh, meow, quack - when prompted for the correct animal about 85% of the time
25. Star - he has glow in the dark stars on his ceiling, and he loves looking at them at night. He looked up at the light in the hallway this morning and said, "tar!"
26. That? - fairly obvious what that's for
27. Num-num - besides being the "yummy" sound, I think this is what he calls bananas. That's my fault for calling his baby food "'nana num-nums" when he was little
28. Cookie - for Cookie Monster and his arrowroot cookies
29. Trash - I haven't really heard him come out with this one yet, but Rolf says he says"tash"
30. Teeth - he LOVES to brush his teeth and asks to do so after his bath each night

Additionally, we have heard him mimic us when reading That's Not My Puppy and That's Not My Dragon. It comes out "nah mah bubbee" and "nah mah dgun." Last night, Rolf was reading him a book featuring Grover and "cute things to touch." Rolf showed Will Grover on one page, then Elmo on the next. He explained how Elmo was the red one, and how Grover was blue, and we both heard Will say, "that's not the red one" as he pointed to Grover. I'm sure some of that was shared hallucination, but I wasn't really listening to them, and I heard the same thing Rolf did.

Will babbles all the time. There are so many words just hanging out in there that I know are just going to pop out any time. His mind is obviously faster than his tongue, but that tongue is catching up quickly. I love watching him work hard to pronounce a word correctly. For example, "please" used to be little more than a voiced "th." Last night, he worked really hard and came out with "pteeze."

I wish I could crawl inside his head to know exactly what he understands and how much is right there under the surface. Parenting is like putting together a million-piece jigsaw puzzle: it takes a lot of searching for the right piece, a lot of trial-and error, and a lot of patience, but slowly and surely, a complete picture emerges. From what I've seen so far, Will's picture is a masterpiece.