Fresh news from the fount of wisdom that is BabyCenter:
Hello, Papa!
Your baby understands more than she says, and she's aware that everything around her has a name. Help satisfy her curiosity by pointing at familiar objects and naming them: "Ball." "Truck." "Airplane." Few 11-month-olds are ready to say these words, but they file them away for future use. Soon you'll be able to say, "Where's the ball?" and she'll show you. If her first words sound strange, she may be repeating them the way they sound to her ears: "Da-ee" for "doggie," for example.
First, BabyCenter calls me a mom, now they're calling 3B a girl? I know we had that whole
orchiopexy thing, but that's no reason to call him a girl. Don't make me pull this blog over and come back there, BabyCenter.
Genders aside, BC is pretty accurate about some developmental stages in their e-mail notices. This one, however, they're a little behind on. It was about three weeks ago that Mama told me when I came home that she had been reading 3B a story with a mention of a ball, and that when she got to that point, 3B looked up over the top of the book and found his ball in the room. The big purple one, not the one the doctor recovered in the orchiopexy, you knob.
It's been lots of fun for 3B to discover the names of various things and find them or go grab them. Following the advice of my sisters, we leave burp diapers in his crib as comfort items--easier to replace than a worn-out blanket and you always have a burp diaper when you need one (or two, since the Curious George doll in his crib needs one too, apparently). When he's out of his crib, we can ask 3B where his burp diaper is and he'll go find it in his crib, pull it out through the rails, and lay down to cuddle with it on the floor. It's adorable.
Since he's been learning the names of his various body parts, there's been plenty of grabbing of those too--like ears, hair, eyes. Of course, it's best to grab those when there's no better trouble--like screwdrivers or electrical cords--to get into, like when he's in his high chair, hands coated with cereal, banana, or other sticky foods. That's also the best time to point out Mommy and Daddy's ears, hair, and eyes, and to pat their heads. "Pat" being the word we use for "open-handed strike to the top of the skull, delivered with enough force to knock out fillings." It's 3B's little way of extending our together time past just meals, since we all need a shower by the time we're done feeding him.
Just the other day, when I was apparently as high as a kite, I thought it would be a good idea to give him a banana for a snack. He loves bananas, right? He can eat them by himself, right? We're going to be walking around during snack time, which means he can't eat a snack that requires sitting, so this is a brilliant solution right?
Right:
Sort of like marinara sauce and a white shirt in reverse, no?For all of his recognition of various objects and shapes--balls, bike, books, stars, the moon--and for all of his babbling, which is a pretty steady stream of various phonemes these days, 3B hasn't seemed to try to put too many of them together to imitate us, although he does say both "da da" and "ma ma" for each of us. But after last night's successful trial of
my new martini cocktail set, I'm would contest BC's assertion that if 3B says "da-ee" for "doggie" that he's not repeating exactly the sounds that we make. If sometime today 3B says, "Dish mar-ee-nee is sooooooooo smoove." and then rubs his lips to see if they're still attached to his face, we'll know that he's repeating exactly what he hears.
Not that we're not able to learn by mimicking 3B, however. Just last night, for example, I found out that sometimes cuddling with a burp diaper on the floor is just what a boy needs. Mmm. Dat mar-ee-nee was sooooooooo smoove.
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