Learning to Speak

MOST RECENT UPDATE:

11/15/2024: You're 2 and a half. You can speak in full conversations now and you're SO SILLY. We love it. You give Jaz commands (and Andrew too...) and you know how to ask for songs on the Alexa devices (kind of scary... you asked her for "Baby Shark" during nap time and she started playing Da Baby (rapper) which turned into Megan Thee Stallion's WAP... and now we need to put the child lock on it)

You can differentiate between English and Portuguese - we're fairly certain you understand Portuguese about as well as you do English - and you like to watch your TV shows in Portuguese sometimes. You also like Youtube kids videos from Brazil (Bento e Toto, Bob Zoom, and a few more) and you can follow the dances. We love watching you dance to Funk de Patinho. You clap when they say "Palma", freeze at "Congela!" jump at "Pula!" You are amazing. 

Oh - and you definitely know your alphabet in both English and Portuguese - and you sing the songs (in both languages) all the time - as well as counting to 20 in both languages, "Parabens" (Happy birthday song in Portuguese) OMIGOODNESS you're so smart!

Around 10 months old you began saying intelligible words! You started with "da-da" and "mama" and "bola" (Portuguese for Ball).

When you were 15 months old you had enough of a list of words that we started a note on our phones to keep track. 17 months - and you're nearing 100 words and you have a few phrases, so I think we're going to stop counting, but we're so proud of you for how amazingly smart you are. It's almost scary because you can see or hear something just one time and you store it away in that brain of yours and surprise us with it days later. There are quite a few words that you've said where we've looked at each other like "did you teach him that? I didn't teach him that!" 

We DO let you watch some youtube videos like Miss Rachel (which is popular right now in the 2020s for helping kids with speech delays) and we think you learn a LOT from her. You're also with Leda a lot, but she teaches you a lot of Portuguese. (way to go for learning that too!) It's so true what they say though that kids this young are sponges. You soak up everything, my little bug. It's exciting to watch. We just need to make sure that we're careful with what you soak up. even the commercials on TV (on sports channels) have been a bit too grown up lately.

By the way - we were told by your pediatrician that by 18 months you should have 20 words.... 

Also of note (end of October 2023): You have started to recognize and identify letters of the alphabet. We worked on the letter "D" the other day by holding up one of your foam letters from the floor mat. You know that D is "D" and when Mommy drew it on your dry erase board you have repeatedly identified it as such over the last few days. We're reminding you what starts with "D" like Dada, Doggy, Dinosaur, Delicious, Duck, etc. 

Today - Leda came over and installed a sticker alphabet on your wall! There's a chalkboard underneath where you can practice your letters when you're ready. Immediately you were identifying colors too, though while you know where to find the actual "yellow" you also call all the other colors "yellow" right now. You just start with the real yellow - which is hilarious. HOWEVER - you also held up your colored eggs and said "yellow" (correct) and "pink" (also correct) so - I'm not sure where the association actually lies. 

We are working with the random letters that you grab when you pull up your foam floor pad (which was supposed to cushion your carpet... but you just like to pull up the carpet and pick individual foam squares off the floor and carry them around your room - which is fine... though messy) and lately you've been handing me Big "E" and little "e" so that's next - and we're also going to do daily point and identify lessons on your alphabet wall!

You've started to grasp the concept of drawing - with dry erase markers on the board that's mounted in your room. Mommy drew a balloon (which is an obsession of yours) and you love to point it out whenever you notice it. Mommy also drew "D" and we have some words and pictures on there. We will work with that - and we will also work on your chalkboard when it makes sense. You can scribble now - and you love to put the top on and off the marker.