Talk It Up

Zeke suddenly, truly talks. And, as is typical for Zeke's style of developing new skills, he waited to demonstrate this ability until he could immediately succeed. A couple of months ago, I learned that by about 20 months most toddlers say about 50 single words and regularly use two-word phrases. Up until this week, Zeke had probably at least 100 words that he only occasionally put together in phrases. In the course of the last five days, he's started using three- or four-word sentences. I have been amazed at how much he sounds just like our three-year-old nieces, only without the abstract observations and made-up stories. And of course only very few people with plenty of experience can translate what he says.

By far his most common phrase is 'I want ____', which is usually but not always related to food. Almost every time he is near the open refrigerator he grabs the container of margarine and says 'I want toast'. He also uses 'my ____' (which may or may not mean the same as 'I want my ____'), as well as 'play ____' and 'go ____'. Last night he saw me putting his clean dishes away and asserted that 'wanna my bowl', which I gave to him just to see what he planned to do with it. This was followed by 'wanna my spoon' and 'Cheerios'. Aaron was writing on a piece of paper on Thursday, which got an 'I wanna color' from Zeke.

In his recent vocabulary explosion he has picked up names of aunts, uncles, and cousins. As part of this, the adults in his life have managed to convince him that I'm 'mom' (previously Aaron and I have both been 'dad'), and I love that he calls me by my real title. On Monday, I heard Zeke say 'hands mom; wanna do hands mom' while pointing at the sink. As I helped him wash his hands, I realized our lives had just changed forever. There's no going back now - he really talks, which means he really is growing up.