Language explosion.

All of the sudden, Kai is picking up new words at an astonishing rate. He says new words every day. He has been really stubborn about learning body parts. Like maybe he just wasn't into them or something. Then, out of no where the other day, he just started pointing to features of my face and naming them. First he said eyes, so I decided to press my luck and maybe annoy him by asking him about my mouth. He pointed to it and said mouth, then ears, nose and so on. Through experimentation, I have learned that he also knows his own face parts and those of the cats , dogs and various animals in books. I was impressed that he knows that people ears are ears and so are the cats' and the dogs'. Noses also. I was kind of under the impression that it might be tricky.

He is also using his expanding vocabulary to order me around and to tattle on Jake. He calls me, or leads me somewhere by the finger, and shows me where he wants me to sit and tells me what to do. Mostly, it is "nurse." When he and Jake are playing he will frequently call for me so that he can tell me that Jake won't let him stick a finger in an outlet or that Jake is playing with a train improperly. He accomplishes tattling mostly through body language, but there are some definite words in the mix of babble.

He has been consistently doing the sign for bird and he says, "gawk, gawk, gawk" when we see birds. Mostly geese. I have tried to show off this baby trick to friends and he pretends he has no idea what I am talking about.

It is a super fun time. It is really incredible to be able to effectively communicate with him most times.