Monday, October 14, 2013

Linguistic Nerd Mama

Hello. I'm going to enter into linguistic nerdiness and catalog all of Ollin's current words, mostly because it would be fun to look back after a while and remember which words he started with, but a little bit because I want to make sure I'm actually understanding him as much as possible. I only listed words that he has said in more than one situation, to show that he could apply the new language. Sorry, I'm not feeling nerdy enough to use the phonetic alphabet.
anss                ant
app                 apple
ah da              all done
baybeee          baby
ball                  ball
bzzzzz              bee
bike                 bike
bullebulle         blueberry
buk                 book
buud                bird
cock                clock, sometimes truck & quack
dock               duck
cack                quack
coe                 crow
dahh               down
foof                 food
hanna              hands
hanga              hanger, hang up
hemmut           helmet
humma            hummingbird
hop                  grasshopper
hug                  hug
shish                fish
mwa!               kiss
mama              Mama (finally!)
mehh               more (used to be nunuNUnununu)
peeez               please
pee                 pee (accompanied by a sss sound)
popp               Papa
pip                  pencil
payp                 paper
poop               poop
push                push
pull                  pull
fuafua              soft (interestingly, the Japanese word for soft, which I mentioned once)
pida                spider (sign is a little pinching motion above his head)
shyaddaahh!   (I have no idea. Sit down? Fall down? Shut up? JK, he's never heard the last.)
tall                   tall
dis, dat            this, that
chuck              truck
wawa              water

According to his pediatrician, around this time, Ollin should start using two or three word phrases. He's not doing this yet, but I'm not worried. This is his spoken/expressive language so far, but his receptive language is (in my biased opinion), much more developed. He understands multiple step instructions, new concepts, and that Mama and Papa are actually Shannon and Willow. I want to reread my language acquisition books from the perspective of new language learning, now that I'm a mom. I'm curious how teaching some basic signs has affected his spoken language, if at all. No way to know for sure, but I think it has helped him feel confident in expressing himself. He usually uses one or the other, but not both the sign and the word.