new skills

My Boy is a bit of a late talker. Not by medical standards, you understand, just by my extended family's (who have experience of a same age baby who is a very early talker), and sometimes mothers at baby groups. As a boy, language does come a little later, I'm aware, and people are always telling me "they concentrate on one or the other, walking or talking". Considering he's been a late walker too, I think he's been concentrating on eating (typical BLW baby) and growing lots of teeth, he has more than most toddlers we know.

He doesn't often use noises to communicate, he prefers instead facial expressions and gestures, some of which we learned at baby signing classes, and some which are his very own invention. He does lots of signs: milk, duck, bird, plane, elephant, giraffe, rain, sun, full up, more, frog, tired, pain and fish, I think that covers it. He makes a tiny, quiet noise for a dog. For cow, pig, lion & tiger, he simply does a facial expression of what I look like when I make the noise for these animals, which is quite creative! Sometimes he adds a roar noise for lion/tiger, and roars for other beasties such as dinosaurs. He said his 1st word ages ago: it was "Granddad", not very clearly, but understandable nonetheless! He has sometimes copied sounds such as Dada, cat or "stairs" when going upstairs. And recently has started doing lots of actions to songs, and learning his body parts.

But the weekend just gone, there was an explosion of learning!It all seemed to come at once. He said "pasta" (several times) while we were out for lunch, "hello" while playing with a mobile phone, "mango" (combined with the "more" sign) while having mango for a snack, and "children" when watching children play out of the window. Hi existing words seemed to become much clearer too, I couldn't believe it!

Although, yesterday, when he signed for "more" strawberries, he took one off me, and ran happily away shouting "pasta! pasta!", so perhaps pasta may just mean food at this stage.....ha ha.

The most exciting thing he learned, at 18 m old, is to give kisses. Now he is not an affectionate or clingy child. He is the polar opposite. He pushes me (and everyone else) away, even if he has hurt himself. The only cuddles I really remember getting is when he was around 7m old and had to go to hospital with bronchiolitis. So a kiss is a major, big-ass, mega deal! On Sunday, I got one (I almost cried) so did Daddy, Nanna and Granddad. It was gorgeous, I'll never forget his 1st kiss.

On Monday, we learned that there was a baby in mummy's tummy, and where to point to when asked: "where's mummy's baby?" (after a joke answer of my knee, which he now does every time, before correctly pointing at my tummy!). He then, spontaneously, kissed the baby. I was so pleased. He now kisses the baby on request loads! More than he's willing to kiss me anyway....

I just think it's such a shame that all this development has been interrupted by a nasty bout of teething. We were up almost every 30mins last night, even with Boy in our bed. He was just so upset, I've never seen him so bad with teething. He's a total foodie, and it's clearly very painful for him to eat, and this distresses him no end. We are watching loads of TV, which I hate, but at least it's keeping him out of the blistering sunshine. That's right, he's feeling so poorly, he doesn't even want to play in the garden! So unlike him. Poor baby. Someone needs to make some new episodes of Peppa Pig...and quick!