Peek-a-

boo!

This month, Ryland's vocabulary has grown and many of his cute "toddler" words are becoming more refined, so we thought we should do our best to record what his words sound like to us before we forget.  Some of the more common things include: "eebees" (means ABCs, as in he wants to watch his ABC video, play his ABC game, read his ABC book, or use his magnetic ABC letters); "yapes" (means shapes, same as ABCs...); "ominus" (means hippopotamus); "Duck! Duck!" (which could, indeed, mean duck, or maybe truck, but usually it means stuck...as in, he's "stuck" on the floor and can't get in his chair, or he's "stuck" in his chair and wants on the floor, or the puzzle he wants is "stuck" on the bottom of the stack, or the toy box is "stuck" on the shelf, or the door is "stuck" closed and he wants to go outside, etc. etc...we hear this a LOT).  When Ryland has more than one word to say, he tends to blend all the words together to sound like one word anyway, like "Nomyeebees, ying-i-me" (Now I know my ABC's, next time won't you sing with me).  He sings his ABC's so fast, it's hard to tell whether he's really saying every letter or not.  When we ask Ryland to do things, he's started responding with "O-tay" (unless it's something he doesn't want to do, then he says "no" and has to be "encouraged" to choose a better response).

Beyond his speech and language development, Ryland is also improving his academic skills.  Often, he will see a word (in a book or on a label, where a picture is present to identify the meaning for him) and he'll spell the word then read it (like he's competing in a spelling bee).  He counts things all the time, and his one-to-one correspondence is always getting better (he says one number for each object he counts) so that he's often able to count up to 12 items successfully.

For Farm Fair this year, we dressed as Ryland's favorite nursery rhyme, Hey Diddle Diddle.  Ryland practiced "jumping" over the moon for several days, and he still pulls the foam moon out and asks me to watch him "jump" over it.

Here are some other pictures from October:

A cute video of Ryland swinging with a fun laugh to make you smile: