Two weeks ago, Duncan was playing in the living room when River (our grey cat) suddenly came down the stairs. He looked up, pointed, and said, "Cat!" very distinctly. He's said it a few times since in a breathy whisper, but I think it's still difficult for him. This morning he was crawling in circles after Simon, saying, "Dat! Dat!" Then he sat up and said, "K! K!" in frustration. I guess putting the c-sound at the beginning is hard.
Duncan also has two signs. The same day that he said cat he signed "milk" while he was drinking his bottle, and has repeated it consistently since. And this morning he signed "diaper" for Dane when it was time to get his changed. Duncan seems to be our nerd right now, working on language instead of athletics. For weeks he's been sitting and watching his brother stand. But now he is finally standing and cruising in the play pen. Yesterday he even frightened himself by letting go with both hands momentarily. To everyone's surprise, he was able to stay up.
Tristan is focusing more on his feet than communication. I call him Little Baryshnikov. He cruises around the edge of the play pen quite confidently; he walks a few steps pushing wheeled toys; he pulls up on and totters along with dogs; and he can stack boxes and toys in the play pen, climb to the top of the pile and stand on one foot while touching the side of the pen with only one hand. He demonstrated that last trick right after Dane and I reassured each other that it was perfectly safe to let the babies play with a cardboard box and headed for the kitchen to do dishes. (We are awesome parents.)
Yesterday, Tristan said his first distinct word. We were playing outside, and I pulled a banana out of my back pack. Tristan lunged toward me yelling, "Na-na-na! Na-na-na!" He may not be the elocutionist that his brother is yet, but Dane and I were proud and excited. We have communication. It's like establishing contact with the Apollo astronauts after radio back-out while they go 'round the far side of the moon -- but better!
Here's a picture of Dane showing the boys the sign for Na-na-na:
4 comments:
My observation was certainly that you are awesome parents. And those are very happy little boys!
I think the unvoiced velar plosive is a hard sound to make.
David still says "ta" and "tau" for "cat" and "cow". He uses the "k" sound perfectly fine for all other appropriate words (crayon, cookie, cracker, etc.), but those were early ones and he's never fixed them.
Wait... I didn't say that.
Hi, Hanna,
I just wanted to thank you for your interesting comment on my "White Noise" blog post. The spam filter tried to swallow it, so I just found it today.
I'm glad I followed you over here, and I look forward to reading your "back pages."
Post a Comment