View from"New Home" in the Oakland Hills
While working on our remodel, we're staying at our friends' recent purchase in a little tear-down on the most gorgeous acre and a half lot in the world. Unlike us, they plan to not live here during the planning, demolition and construction of their future house. The opportunity this affords us is fabulous!
This week, my Baby Center email told me all about possible benchmarks for vocabulary and words that the girls may have at this time developmentally. The poll shows that most kids, 75% of boys and 58% of girls only use one word at a time when "talking." Neither of my twin girls often speaks more than a word at a time, but one of them will use their sign language to augment their message: one spoken word with another or more signs to punctuate or add additional detail to her comment or story.
It seems that the girls learn a new word - either spoken or signed - everyday. While picking apples outside in the orchard of our current home, the girls got very excited and were showing a lot of enthusiasm about the picking and then the putting the apple in the bag part of the process. After 2 or 3 rounds each of this task, Ava shouted out "Apple!". An extended chorus of "apple" followed hereafter like she was the lead soprano in an opera recounting the trials and tribulations of apple picking - lasting far longer than necessary or needed to acknowledge this seemingly minor event. Tina echoed the "apple," but clearly, Ava was the diva of this production.
This is the apple orchard behind the house that started Ava's lyric opera of sorts
"Baby" has also popped up while reading through some books. I thought they were just echoing what was being talked about in the books, but this week, while finding a box of diaper wipes with a picture of a baby on the sides, Ava walked over to the box, pointed to the picture and said, "Baby!" "She's got it," I think. She continued to floor me when, as she squatted down by the box, she pointed to the eyes of the baby and said, "Eyes," followed quickly by "Shoes". As enthusiastically as I can, I applaud and encourage her: "That's right, Ava! There's a baby with shoes on that box!"
At the barn this week, Ava and Tina both got very excited to talk about the dogs there. They ran around chasing them slapping their thighs signing the word for "dog" and saying "woof, woof." When I mentioned that there were also horses and reminded them of the sign, Ava quickly did a modified version of "horse", pointing to where the ears would be instead of making her fingers into horsey ears on her head. Testing her memory and also showing off for Daddy later when we were home, she showed Daddy that they saw horses and dogs at the barn that day.
New words like "banana", "cracker," and "night-night" just seem to spill out of their mouths nearly every day. They prove that all they are understanding the words and are really trying to tell stories about their day or requests what they'd like to do. Nostalgia kicks in as, more and more every day, they are becoming more like little people and not so much babies.
