He Speaks!

At 19 months, Jasper finally let us in on all that's going on inside his head. It took a while, but the words are finally coming out.

Before we left for the cabin, his consistent words were hop, off, on & bowl. These are totally not normal words, as far as I'm concerned, but he always used them appropriately and without prompting. He'd run into the room carrying his stuffed frog saying hop. Or he'd point to our ceiling fan/light and say either on or off based on what he wanted us to do with the light. He was considerably proud of the power those words held in that particular situation. Each morning he would use great gusto to say bowl when he saw it, knowing it would soon be loaded up (generally three times) with Cheerios for him to devour. He'd also say dad (or da rather) when i'd point to Drew, but it wasn't as unsolicited as the other words.


At the cabin, he really started to pick up steam, saying Daisy, papa, nanananan (for nana), auntie & uncle. He also picked up (in one shot) that a snake says hiss. Auntie Lindsay taught him that one - for what reason I have no idea! Truck did not come quickly, but car came before our trip was over. The drive from the cabin to the airport provided many opportunities for him to practice that word. Animal sounds were some of his first "words": moo, hoo and roar being the most consistent. And as previously mentioned, he started and hasn't stopped saying romp from his dinosaur book.

The week after we came home from the cabin, Jasper came running into the kitchen holding the very hungry caterpillar book. He had the first page open and was saying egg. then he'd turn to the second page and say pop. He was proud, but I couldn't be more proud of him for that. It was too cute!

Now, that we're at 20 months, the list of words is constantly growing. He tries to say nearly everything we say, and usually we can figure out the unsolicited words. But there are some that still have my stymied. The following is the best I could do at remembering what all he's saying right now.

• milk (it sounds like "muck"), water, spoon, bowl and fork, waffle, cracker, peas, meatball, muffin (those two words sound a bit alike), apple, grape, pineapple, egg & pear.


• truck, dump truck, bike, bus, tractor, fire (for firetruck), choo-choo (for train) & airplane (sounds a lot like apple, but you can tell from the context - especially if he's pointing up, accompanies it with "zoom" or if you can hear an airplane flying overhead).


• Instead of boat he says ship, but for a while his "p" sound was not being enunciated well, so you can imagine how that was sounding. We hoped there would be no ships in the church nursery. He's also trying to say helicopter.


• Motorcycle and race car are still associated with the sounds they make. We have a photo of a Porsche race car in a picture book for him, and when I asked him what it was, he said "vroom." I kid you not, it sounded like the actual thing. It was deep and with feeling. Drew couldn't resist showing him the Cayenne commercial on YouTube after that.


• Animals sounds are increasing, and actual animal names are also being used instead of just the sound they make. Now Jasper will say cow, monkey, sheep, pig, bee, frog, whale, fox, turtle, duck & dog. He'll also say baa, quack, oink, buzz, neigh (for the horse), growl (for the bear), tweet & meow. For a while the bird and the cat made the same noise. But now these are distinct and pretty adorable!


• Here are some additional words in his vernacular: ball, shoe, mountain, flower, bubble, bye, floor, baby, wah-wah (the cry sound a baby makes - learned from "wheels on the bus"), up, down, house, bath, pop and uh-oh. He likes to say "our car" or "our house" and this morning said "dad's shoes." Yesterday morning we heard him in his bedroom talking after he'd woken up. It was happy talk, and then all of a sudden we heard "uh-oh. uh-oh. frog. frog. frog. frog. frog. ... (about 15 times)" Drew went in to confirm our suspicion: he had indeed dropped froggie outside the crib. Time to get up!

• One of his favorite activities is to call Drew, put the phone up to his ear (even though I turn on speaker phone) and say "hi, Dad." He doesn't do much other talking over the course of the phone call, but at the end he'll wave at the phone and say "bye-bye, Dad. Love you." This sounds like "wuv you" of course.

• Hot and cold are also commonly used. He can't quite tell the difference when something is really cold vs. hot. He picks up an ice cube and says hot, and I have to say "no, that's cold. Then he'll say "cooooooold" (all drawn out like that). He doesn't really know what hot is, except that we tell him his food is hot and needs to cool, etc. Also, he likes to hold food up for us to blow on when he thinks it's too hot. Even after we've blown on it, in front of him, he'll take it to his mouth, touch his lips and pull it back saying "hot." So then we lean in, give it a little blow and he's good to go. It's pretty cute.

• poop. yes, he knows this already. how can you blame him. every time we change his poopy diaper we say "it's poopy" or something to that extent. So, yep - add that to the list.