Can't Say the Letter T

Luke's language is coming along nicely.  His vocabulary is out of this world.  He knows most of his colors, some shapes, and a few animals.  He knows octopus and zebra, circle and triangle, and green, blue, and red as a few good examples. One thing Luke doesn't have a good grasp of is the letter T. Well saying the letter T anyway.  Anytime the letter T comes up in a word he says it silently. A good example is when he says the name of Thomas the Tank Engine it comes out as "Momas". Whenever we drive home we cross a bridge over water and a lagoon. When Luke sees the water he says "waber". After we drive past Luke says "bye bye waber".

New Words

As mentioned earlier Luke is taking an interest in talking.  Mom has been keeping a list of his words and it is getting rather large.  A lot of them he uses when he see the object.  Other words he says he parrots what we say or what he hears.  He hasn't used two words together or any other complex speech.  I figure that is coming soon.

I guess in a way he does use two words together but in his world I think he uses them as one.  Luke has two sayings that Mom and I just adore.  They are "oh man" and "oh no".  "Oh man" is definitely is our favorite.  Whenever he says that phrase he does it with a southern accent and cracks Mom and I up.


Luke can also ask for things he doesn't see.  This almost exclusively applied to food.  When he gets up in the morning or after his nap he will walk over to the refrigerator, grasp the handle, and say milk or juice over and over again.  If we don't get him any right away he kicks vocabulary to the curb and goes back to screaming.

When it comes to screaming Luke was much worse than his sister.  A lot of times he squeals or screams to hear his own voice or because he is excited.  Other times he does it to show his displeasure or for attention.  We don't cave into his demands and try to redirect him when possible, but so many decibels close to your ears can make you lose patience quickly.  Luckily his screaming is on the decline as he is better able to handle his emotions and use words to describe how he feels.

In closing here's a list of Luke's words.  I don't think it is complete but it does show the breadth of his vocabulary.  Also, he isn't speaking the King's English when saying these words.  Most of them only Mom, Alyce, and I can understand.

Duck
Zebra
Cat
Milk
Juice
Einstein
Socks
Shoes
Toes
Nose
Car
Blocks
Ball
Mickey Mouse
Oh no
Oh man
Book
Truck
Choo choo
Pizza
Baby
Donut
Apple
Applesauce
Cracker
Snow
Hot dog
Bird
Papa
Diaper
Flower
Bubble
Rainbow
Monkey
Doggie
Star
Tickle
Sticker
Mommy
Daddy
Shirt
Water
All gone
All done
Moon
Ice Cream

Ah Dee Doe

Of all things that Luke says there is one phrase that he says the most "ah dee doe".  Ah dee doe is his generic phrase for just about everything.  If he is babbling to himself odds are that is what he will eventually say.  Sometimes whenever we interact with him and say "ah dee doe" back to him he will add in a few extra dee's to make "ah dee dee dee dee doe".  Always extra dees and no extra ahs or does.

This phrase of his is also my favorite thing he says.  Whenever Luke says it and it is a lot he gets very excited or smiles and I get a smile on my face.  Mom and I have speculated on what exactly he is trying to say and one idea we've had is that he is trying to say "I love you".  That is wishful thinking but it would pretty awesome if he says I love you 20 times a day.


I'm guessing that as he gets older and he'll stop saying my favorite phrase and we'll never know what he was trying to say.

Talking

Luke is starting to take an interest in talking.  He like his sister seemed to be more interested in motor development and less interested in talking.  Now that he seems to have mastered most forms of movement he is focusing upon communicating.

A good example was this afternoon.  I met Mom and the kids over my lunch hour to check on the status of our new house.  While we were inside Luke was with Grams, in the car, and none too happy about it.  When I got back Luke really wanted to be in my arms.  I took him for a little walk along the front of the house.  While walking around Luke was pointing at things on the house or in the air and proceeded to talk about them.  While most of it sounded like babble he did say mommy, daddy, and house.  What was so interesting about this exchange was that he was talking in sentences rather that individual words.  It was all gibberish but the tempo, tone, and timing were all spot on.

Star

The last few evenings the sky has been clear and the moon has been very bright in the sky. This observation has not been lost on Luke. When we pull him out of his car seat at night he looks up to the sky, sticks out his finger, points to the moon, and says "star". Good try little buddy!

I don't know where he picked up the word star or even that he knew stars were in the sky. I was impressed that he even got close.

I tried to correct him by telling him it was the moon and after a few tries he says "moo", close enough. On subsequent nights he still calls the moon a star and even points to street lights and calls them stars as well. To the mind of a 19 month old I can see where he'd get the two confused.

Luke's Words

Luke is slowly but surely learning more words.  I kind of thought he would be an early talker since he had Alyce as a role model, but at 19 months I'd say he is running about even with his sister.

He is in the stage right now where he is parroting what we say.  We will ask Luke "can you say zebra?" and he will respond back with a "zeeba".  "Zeeba" is a pretty good reproduction as sometimes he just says gibberish.

He's also learning relationships between objects and their name.  He'll grab his socked feet and say "sock" or pick up a shoe and say "shoe".  Just recently he help up a sheet of stickers and only after telling him what they were once he repeated "sticka" and since then the word has stuck.  (pun intended).

We have also been teaching Luke his body parts.  A while ago he knew of only a few places on his body with the first one being his belly button or "doo doo" as we like to call it because we make the sound of a door bell when we push on it.  He now knows his ears, mouth, hair, chin, feet, and many others.

One thing we can't seem to break him of is screaming for food.  Screaming is probably too harsh of a word; maybe yelling is more appropriate.  Whenever we are sitting the kids down for dinner we get them strapped down before we set out the food.  This keeps Luke from pulling a bowl of macaroni onto the carpet.  From the moment he is sat down to when we get a spoonful of food in his mouth he is yelling and pointing to whatever we've put out.  We know he wants to eat but he has no concept of patience.  Then while we are eating dinner he will start yelling if we don't have another bite ready by the time he is finished with the one in his mouth.  We are trying to teach him to say "more please" when he wants another bite but we are having limited success.  I think once he matures a bit and learns some more words we will cut out the yelling but in the mean time you just want to put in some ear plugs.