Look Who's Talking!

Yesterday was his 20-month “birthday”. The biggest new thing for Luis is talking. His vocabulary is growing every day. About 2 weeks ago, he started using two-word phrases. I remember it clearly, his first was “cold banana” referring to the snack he was eating (I had, in fact, had the banana in the fridge). Now he talks about Mama-Phone, Dada ‘puter (computer) and Adda Bone (Ashley’s bone). He knows lots of food words from pasta to hummus to rainga (raisins) to ce-ya bahhh (cereal bar).
The other morning, I was down in the kitchen and heard through the monitor: Mama. Mama. Ce-ya bah. Up. Ce-ya bah. Mama. Clearly, he was awake and he wanted a cereal bar for breakfast. Though over the last couple of days, it seems like cereal bar is the bar itself, but also his way of saying that he’d like something to eat.
He also knows the names of things like his shoes, sox, broom, bucket, chalk, golf ball, and bicycle (though I couldn’t begin to do the phonetic pronunciation that he uses). It’s been close to a month since the first time he said “wees” – his version of Luis. Before that, he referred to himself as Baby. Now, he almost always calls himself Wees. (Though, I like Solomon’s pronunciation better – Lu-Lees.)
Luis still loves sound words – like vroom, woosh, zing, bam, bonk, pssss, etc. (Maybe he’ll like the old Batman show?) When he’s feeling fussy, you can often distract him with a good sound word; the current favorite being Woosh. And yesterday at the playground, he was holding a spray bottle of sunscreen. He wafted the bottle around himself and said “shhhhhhhhh” imitating the noise the bottle makes.
Luis is learning more and more names – and remembering people from one visit to the next. It helps that we see several people with the same name (Matthew, Mark, and Maggie for example). Luis often points across the street and says Awww Awww, remembering that Diane has birds. My favorite is how he says “Ohm” when we pull into the driveway after being out and about.
Today he did something new. I was sitting in the office and he wanted me to go downstairs with him. He took my hand and said, “Come”. It’s the first time I’ve heard him use that word. I was a bit shocked and didn’t respond at first. He turned back at me, looked at my face and then said Peas?
Some words are difficult to understand – like bacca (pacifier), man-ya (Matthew), rain-ga (raisins), but as long as it comes in context, we all do pretty well.