Mind your language

The biggest sign that your one-year old has bounced right back from a stomach flu? She's back to jabbering and gesticulating non-stop again- to herself, to no one in particular, or to everyone around her, depending on where she is and who's she's around. Apart from Mama, Dada, and Poh Poh (what she calls my mom), Sophie's got a small precious vocabulary of both words and signs that's been most amusing to watch grow:

dok: "dog", which she repeated no less than 10 times this afternoon when we were walking through the Palo Alto Festival of the Arts where everyone and their grandmother was out walking their dogs. If she's in a good mood, she'll even wave hello/goodbye, followed by a sloppy attempt at a flying kiss (which ends up looking more like she's trying to stuff her fingers into her mouth)

bow-wer: "flower", which is accompanied by her reaching her hand above her head like she's trying to pluck a flower from the tree. That basically recreates her first encounter with a flower which I guess just stuck.

ball: "balloon". This was actually one of her first words and I think it started when we went to Yahoo!'s family day which marked the beginning of Sophie's love affair with balloons.

wow!: general expression for wonder and amazement. This is one of our favorites to hear her say because you can see the genuine awe in her face when she says it. Like today at REI when she saw their bright and colorful range of outdoor pool accessories. She was loud too which made the cashiers start to laugh :)

uh-oh: yup, she's learned this too, although from whom I have no idea. And she even uses it correctly, like when she's eating her animal crackers and they accidentally fall onto the floor, or when I pretend to take one of her blocks and hide it from her view.

no no: this could mean one of two things- either she's echoing us and letting us know that she understands our disapproval when we say No to her, or she's asking for No David!, one of her favorite books at the moment. In fact, she loves the entire Diaper David series so much, she uses no no (and a lot of hysterical gesturing) to call for any of the books. You'll understand why once you've read the books...

the sign for milk (clenching and unclenching your fist)- "gimme whatever that is". I haven't been as conscientious in the whole I-must-teach-Sophie-ASL business as I probably should but for some reason, this sign really stuck with her. But not quite for the right thing. Instead of using it for milk exclusively, she now uses it to ask for whatever interesting thing happens to come into her line of vision, whether it's the car keys, a bottle of Gatorade, or my nose.

She also understands a whole bunch of words that she can't say yet (receptive vocabulary vs. expressive which are words she can actually say)- fan, door, come here, clap, dance, wave, nose, where?, kiss, shoe, pat. The project I used to work on researched early literacy development in general, and vocabulary acquisition in particular, and so watching Sophie slowly pick these words up has been like watching all the literature I've read crystallize in reality.

Development is just awesome. Babies are just awesome :)