What Did You Just Say?

If you visit our household on any given day, you'll probably hear the words "no" and "mine" more than you thought possible. It was over a year ago that Joe's speech therapist taught him to say (or sign) the word "mine", and I guess it's no surprise that Dan and Kiki learned quickly what a useful word it is.

They use other words of course, like water, ball, doggie, etc. But lately I have been amazed at some other words they are starting to use. With Daniel, it was when he said "animal" at the beach. Dan is the least talkative of the three, so that's why it was such a surprise to us. Fortunately he doesn't seem to have the same issues Joe does with forming letter sounds, so we think he's just naturally quiet.

Joe's expressive vocabulary is really starting to take off. He'll attempt just about any word you ask him to say and last week he said his first two -word phrases "Kiki plate" and "Joe big". On Saturday he was playing with a plastic container with a flip top lid. He kept saying "ma-naise" over and over, until it dawned on me he was saying "mayonnaise". The container was an old mayonnaise container. The funny thing is, I don't remember calling it that. Maybe once or twice. It's certainly not a word I use every day.

Last night as we were getting ready for bed, Kiki pointed to my shirt and said "a-mo". It sounded very similar to how the kids pronounce "animal" and "Elmo", but there were no pictures of animals or Elmo on my shirt. What was on my shirt? The Alamo. Here's one more little funny story about Kiki. I am trying to teach the kids to say "excuse me" when they pass gas. The other day when this happened, Kiki got a little excited and confused and instead of saying "excuse me" she said "choo-choo!"

The great thing is that they all seem to be learning from each other. I can't wait until they start having conversations with each other. I can only imagine how funny it will be.

Finally, this picture has nothing to do with this post, but I think it's adorable and who couldn't use a little adorable on a Monday morning?