Words! Progress!

Finally we have some real progress on the words!


As I've posted, they have been trickling in over the past month. This past week or so we've gotten even more and it's been a lot of fun to hear Harrison finally start to talk. Some new ones:


Car. He knows Daddy drives a truck and Mommy drives a car. He likes to point out trucks now whenever he sees them and tell you if they are big or small. He doesn't actually say big or small, but uses his arms to show you.



Shoes and socks. He knows they go together and that they are a critical piece of being able to go play outside!


Up and down. Mark taught him to say up or down when driving on the hills in our neighborhood. He also taught him to say "whee" when going down the hill. So cute! And he will definitely tell us "up up" when he wants to be picked up.


We've added a couple of colors: black and purple. He tries yellow but it is definitely not recognizable yet.


Go. I taught him that we go when the stoplight is green. Yesterday he was getting all excited in the car and yelling "go go go" when the light turned.


Choo Choo for train.


And finally, finally, he will say HI! We've tried for so long to get this one to come out. You'd think it would be a pretty early and basic one, but not for this guy. On Wednesday he finally said hi to a girl at the park. It was an older girl, eight or nine, and she said hi to him first, so he just grinned a big smile and said "hi" clear as could be right back to her. So cute!


Bye. He also said bye to some girls at the park. They weren't talking to him--they were talking to each other, but he joined in the conversation.


George. As we all know, he LOVES Curious George. Just the other day out of nowhere he decided to say "George". Now he'll ask to watch it by name.

He's been saying key for awhile now and loves to have you give him the keys to get the mail. He'll say "key key" and stands under the hook where they are hanging and then says "outside" so you'll take him outside to get the mail.

He will also point to himself when you ask him a question that he should answer with "me". Or he'll tell us he wants to watch videos of himself on the computer by pointing to the computer and himself.


Also, he know says "mmm hmmm" for yes and nods his head. It's pretty funny because I'll ask him a question, and he'll just smile and nod and say it, and he just looks so cute.

Overall he seems to be having a lot of fun with his new words and new found ability to express himself. It is so fun to watch the little wheels turn in his head and then hear him spout off a new word!

Almost Two Years Old!

Wow. 23 months. One month shy of two years old. Crazy!

He's saying a lot more, and randomly repeats words he hears. New ones this week are bull, clock, truck, duck, quack, alligator, cracker, shark, and I think there are a few more in there. Like quiche. Yep, that's one an almost-two-year-old should have in his vocabulary...

Now, they certainly aren't all so clear that if you heard him say it you'd know what it was right away, but we have been working with him so we know :-)

And, he's getting better at his letters. He mostly associates the letters with words: D for Da Da, M for Ma Ma, N for Na Na, G for ga ga (garbage), W for wa wa (water) and P for pee pee. B is just B, he knows it but doesn't say any words for it.

We have a few different sets of letters he can play with and are really working on trying to learn the letters and sounds in hopes it will help with his speaking.

He is big on the colors blue (boo) and green (geen) and will point out anything to you that is one those colors and tell you what color it is.

His little mind amazes us at times.

For example, the past few times Mark has gone on long runs, he has come home and had coconut water (lots of electrolytes :-)) and Harrison knows that Mark gets it out of the back fridge and it comes in a little container that looks like a juice box. A couple of times Harrison and I have gotten the water out of the fridge for Mark and brought it out to him while he's cooling down outside.

So, today, Mark goes for a run in the afternoon. As soon as he's home, Harrison is running around saying "wa wa". We are thinking he is looking for his water so we give it to him, but that's not what he wants. So, he follows Mark to the bedroom as he is going in to shower, pulls him to the laundry room, and opens the fridge and hands him a coconut water. He was SO proud of himself--it was really just so cute.

I was taking pictures of him today and he was being silly, so I asked him to make his silly face. He was just cracking up doing it, so here he is:

And these pictures are of him "scooting" himself to us in his high chair. He can move himself all the way across the kitchen in his chair by basically heaving himself forward in it over and over. He laughs so hard as he does it too--seems like he thinks he is getting away with something.

Couscous and Octopus?

Really?



So he can't (or won't...who knows) say "hi" or "bye" or some other pretty basic things.



But he can say Octopus?



And couscous?



Oh well...at least they are words that are eventually needed in a well-rounded vocabulary. Just not sure they should come before some of the basics!

Trouble

I am now convinced that Harrison's middle name should be legally changed to Trouble. Why? Let me count the ways...

It seems like every time we turn around Harrison is growing again. In the past month, he grew an inch, and is now 36 inches tall. Great, right? Not so much. Why? Because he can reach EVERYTHING. Seriously. We can hardly keep anything on the kitchen counters anymore because if it looks even remotely interesting Harrison is going to grab it. If he can't reach it, he pulls himself up on the counter and will try to use his "tools" to reach it--he has actually gotten a long plastic spoon out of a drawer and used it to try and pull something on the counter toward him. Crafty little guy!


I think I posted back a few months ago when we had put locks on some of the inside doors--places like the pantry and laundry room got door handles from guest bathrooms so that we could keep Harrison from getting into trouble in there. Well, earlier this week all three of us were in the kitchen before breakfast just goofing around. Harrison walked over to the pantry, looked at us, and just turned the lock on the door handle and opened it. The grin on his face was at least a mile wide! He just laughed and opened the door and started grabbing at things on the shelves. Ugh!!!


As if that weren't enough, he has also learned how to plug things into outlets this week. He has a little heater in his room, and he now enjoys pulling the plug out of the wall, looking at you with a big grin, and plugging it right back into the outlet. Really? Is that a skill a not-even-two-year-old kid needs to have? I think not.



And then to top it all off, he is just about able to open the deadbolts on our doors to the outside. He knows what to do, he just isn't quite strong enough to muscle the lock all the way around. I guess we'll just have to put some sort of additional deadbolt or something way up at the top of the door now, or change them over to keyed locks. Once he can get this open freedom is just a step away, and he is not at all afraid to open that door and RUN!


But, along with all of this craftiness is coming loads of fun. Harrison loves to play hide and seek, and will now go hide when we tell him to. He's not the best at hiding yet, and still sometimes thinks that we can't see him if he just closes his eyes. But, that just makes it all the more fun.