Language Development

Spencer and I had an actual conversation last week. This is what was said:

Spencer: Mama?

Me: Yes, honey?

Spencer: All done?

Me: No, you're not all done.

If I was a writer and I put that dialogue into my novel, I would never get published, I'd never sell any books and my family would starve. As a mother, though, oh my god did it tug at my heartstrings.

I was really worried about Spencer's language development for a while because he didn't babble until he was 11 months old. But once he started he cycled through all the consonant-vowel combinations really quickly and 2 months later started using actual words. He's up to 9 words now.

Here they are (with their adult translations): buh-bye, hi, mama, dada, num-num (yummy), all done, nana (banana), ni-ni (night-night), and do (shoe). Do (shoe) is his newest word. It was confirmed as a word today when he picked up his shoe, tried to stick his foot into it and said "do" about 20 times. Then he picked up my shoes, said "do" and tried to put my feet in them. My right pinky toe is still broken, so this was quite painful while also being tremendously cute.

Then, with shoes on, we walked over to the park at the end of our street. We played for a while before Spencer announced "all done", and then all by himself (with me following closely behind) he walked out of the park, walked along the sidewalk, up our driveway and to the front door. I'm telling you, the boy is nuclear physicist/brain surgeon material.

This picture has nothing to do with this narrative, but I was adding stuff to Spencer's baby book today and saw it and wanted to share it.

Spencer's first official smile