Toddler Speak
I’m not sure why, but G seems so much older at this age than his brother did. Sure he’s bigger, but I also think his vocabulary is huge. He’s definitely speaking way more than E ever was at this age, and I think more than most kids his age. However, he’s still very much speaking as a toddler. In other words, every time he opens his mouth, it’s the best thing ever.
Every morning, he comes into my “offie” to say good morning and play with whatever he can get his hands on. He’ll often try to convince me to let him play with whatever is on my desk, by holding out his hands and asking me if he can hold it. “Hone? Hone?” If he’s rewarded with something, he’ll clutch it in his arms and ask “myes?” to confirm that it is his.
Some of his favorite things lately - the color yellow (or lellow) which he looks for and points out everywhere. Another favorite is anything apple related. The other day I was sitting on the floor with the kids, and E told me to sit “criss cross applesauce.” I complied, but I quickly realized based on the confusion on his face, that G hadn’t attended daycare long enough to know what this was. He was only in his toddler room for two months when it shut down, and he wasn’t even walking at that point. So I guess it wasn’t something he had learned. Instead, he latched right on to the one word he understood.
Which is how we found ourselves headed downstairs right before bed to have a late night dessert of applesauce. “Appiesass! Appiesass!” G was chanting as we got down the stairs. This kid loves apples and applesauce so much, you can’t even mention the word in front of him (no matter the context) unless you’re prepared to deliver.
If you ask him where something is, he’ll tell you it’s the in “haw-way” which we’re torn over if this started as him trying to say highway (thanks to a recent road trip) or hallway, but we usually repeat hallway when he says it now. Either way, that’s never where the object is. It’s just his answer.
Every night we all go upstairs to put on PJs. Or as G says as he’s climbing the stairs “all go, all go, pee-gees!” If E is playing with something that he wants, he’ll walk up to him and just ask “turn? turn? turn?” until he either gets one, or starts crying because it didn’t work.
Possibly my favorite thing that has ever come out of his mouth, though, is “satch shew!” We do a lot of running around in circles here, and whenever we catch either E or G, we usually say “Got you!” So G has picked up on that, so randomly throughout the day, he may run up and wrap his arms around your legs and say “I satch shew!” Or we’ll pick him out of his crib and he’ll wrap his arms around our necks and say it again. It’s amazing and always instantly a mood boost.
He has so many words, and not all of them are cute because they’re pronounced funny. Most of them he says perfectly clear, but they’re still cute. He’s started telling us he’s happy at random times during the day. Many times it’s because we’ve just served him some food that he’s extra excited about, but still cute. Although he can say E’s name, he’s taken to calling him brother a lot too. “Hi brother!” is something we hear a lot.
Recently G was having a hard time sleeping, so I went and got him up, and just brought him downstairs on the couch with me. We hadn’t gone to bed yet, so I figured I’d give him a bit of a reset, and put him back to bed after he’d calmed down. Everything seemed to be going well, and he was acting ready as I brought him back to his room. But then he realized where his normal routine was broken - instead of E being there to say goodnight, E was already asleep.
He asked for him, and I said, oh no he’s already asleep.. you’ll see him in the morning! Which, of course was not okay with him. He started calling his name louder and louder, until he woke E up. He said goodnight to his brother and then easily went back to bed, and I was left with a crying E who didn’t understand why he was woken up.
Luckily, E is pretty thrilled with his brother too. He’s taken to kissing him on the forehead a lot lately, and it’s incredibly cute.
Finally, sometimes his words highlight things that we say a lot. A few weeks ago I noticed G waving his hand at me and saying “ca'mere!” when he wanted me to follow him somewhere. It seemed random, until I noticed myself saying the same thing to him a few days later.