Day 21: Talking up a storm

Lego is a talker. He always has been, and I have reason to suspect he always will be. I remember when my mom came out to help me when he was a newborn, she commented on the fact that he made noise a lot more often than most newborns, and that his sounds were more varied. I also remember being in church week after week when he was two to five months old and wondering why he babbled so loudly all the time when everyone else’s babies were more or less silent when they weren’t crying. I remember wondering whether I should be trying to keep him quiet, and, if so, how.

Lego wasn’t a wunderkind or anything as far as the onset of his talking went. He said his first word (milk) at about 12 months. In fact, at 12 months, the speech therapist he was seeing for eating troubles thought he was speech delayed. Within three months, though, his vocabulary had grown significantly. When he was 16 months old, I made a list of every word I could think of that he said spontaneously. There were over 85 words on the list—apparently more than the average two-year-old knows (according to the AAP, the average child acquires his or her 50th word at about 24 months).

Not only does Lego know a lot of words, but he uses them. All the time. (Well, except in the first few minutes after meeting a stranger. Sometimes.) He’s becoming more adept at speaking in sentences. Today he said, “Mommy and [Lego] play in the little brown house,” and, “Airplane goes fly.” He also loves making sound effects.

Unfortunately, he’s started picking up my pseudo-swearing (not Jon Boy’s yet, thank goodness): dang it, shoot, and oh my word. I won’t even realize I’ve said anything, and he’ll start repeating it over and over and over. Oops. At least I’m not saying anything worse, eh?