Verbal Explosion

I know, I haven't posted in WEEKS. But, you see, I've been caught up in a new trend at our house. It's the "whas sat?" game. Played all day, every day. Your toddler points at a person, place, or thing and asks "what's that?" only it sounds more like "whas sat?" because she's a toddler, for heaven's sake, and her pronunciation skills are still developing.

This past week, an outside observer would assume our little 18 month old angel has an obsession with surgical removal of the appendix and roosters. This would be a logical assumption given that she runs around the house pointing and announcing "appy" and "cock" at least a dozen times each day. To the more seasoned observer, it's clear that she is still having trouble with "L" sounds, thus "apple" is "appy" and "clock" is "cock". Taking her out in public, anywhere that happens to have a clock, is such fun. She points and repeats, loudly and urgently, "cock, cock, cock!" until you confirm for her, "Yes, that is a cLock! Clever girl!" just as loudly, but with a red-tinged face.

All that aside, just in the past month her vocabulary has EXPLODED. She knows TONS of words now. And not just ones we've taught her. She picks them up, just from listening to us. She can recognize a handful of shapes, over half her digits(2,3,4,5,8,9,0 are all easily named, while 1,6,&7 seem to give her trouble), and she's starting on letters now.

We've started calling her a little girl, instead of a baby, because she really is, all of a sudden, more like a little girl, and less like a baby. But, I'll still say things like, "put down that XYZ, that's not for babies, that's for mommies and daddies." I said this to her the other day when she got into the utility drawer and pulled out a hammer. She held it up to me and said "hammer" (one of her alphabet learning toys has a picture of a hammer for the letter "H") and I told her "hammers aren't for babies, let's put that away please" as I took it from her. She looked up at me and asked "girs?" It took me a minute, but then, trying very hard not to laugh at her cleverness, I told her "no, it's not for little 'girs' either!" She's SOO quick.