From Words to Sentences?

Today at lunch I was sharing some stories with Renee about Greyson's latest words and phrases. I thought I should record some of them for posterity.

Greyson has a vocabulary of about 30 animals and animal sounds. Every day on the way to work he studies his animal picture book, asking me what things are and reciting the names of the animals he knows. He's definitely in the midst of a "language explosion" as they say and learning new words every day. Just last week he learned emu and peacock on the way to school and proudly announced them to his Pops in the evening. When he doesn't recognize or know the word for something he patiently points and says "dis?" until we give him a new word. He's also learning people's names, but cannot pronounce his own. It comes out sounding like his word for raisin, which I guess is close enough.

His new favorite word is Aquabats. Of course there's a story - the Aquabats are a band that recently played the Super Music Friends Show on Yo Gabba Gabba. One of the members of the band co-created the show, so they're featured periodically. Greyson likes to walk around the house chanting "aquabats, aquabats, aquabats."

As previously reported, he's also learning to put two words together. It started simply enough - night night Mama, bye bye Dada. It evolved into more complicated sentences like "lizard ride" when he put his lizard on his truck and took him for a spin around the house. And now he's repeating two and three word phrases that he hears us say - things like "mean old bug" and "itchy boot" (don't ask!). Mike and I are watching our mouths, but are prepared for the inevitable slip-up.

Last night we were in the middle of our bed-time routine. I was picking out a book to read, and found one we hadn't seen in a while. I proudly showed Grey my choice, "The Alphabet book!" His response: "Aquabats?"

Charmed Life

Greyson had a chance encounter with a fire truck this weekend, although his parents may have ultimately been more excited about the whole experience. After we had breakfast at the neighborhood diner, a firetruck pulled into the parking lot so the firemen could have their breakfast. I was settling the bill while Mike and Greyson walked down to look at the big red truck. As we approached, a rescue/ambulance vehicle pulled up and the paramedics got out for breakfast. They noticed Greyson looking at the truck and offered to let him sit in the passenger seat!

As he got settled in, G stared quietly at the emergency workers rather than their awesome vehicle. They found a red plastic fireman's hat for him to wear, and he finally had a look around the cab of the truck. They invited him to the local station to have a look around someday, there's even a fire pole at our station, which is apparently pretty rare these days. Alas, I didn't have my camera with me, but I think Mike and I will remember Sunday morning for a long time, seeing our little man sitting up so high on that fire truck.