Oliver & Adeline: One is fun!

I was amazed by all the things Oliver learned to do before he turned one, but I had no idea how blown away I would be by all the things he is doing now that he is one. His walking, running, climbing, strength and balance seem to improve everyday. To me, the most amazing change is his vocabulary. Oliver picks up new words everyday, granted Sheryl and I might be the only ones who understand half of them. He identifies and repeats many more words than he says spontaneously, but both lists are growing.

A few standard words he uses totally on his own these days include: mama, dad-dad, up, out, down, help, bus, wheels, cat, Jax, go? (as in, where did the cat go?), banana (nanya), bubbles, hat, lights, eyes, see-see, and that's? (as in, what is that?)

For his repeat words (including, e.g., if we ask where is the kite? he points to kite and says "kite" as well as where he points to something and we tell him what it is then he repeats), he started out by pointing and saying "see, see" when he wanted to show us something. But, now, his most common phrase to go along with the point is "that's?" This made us realize that we ask him "what's that" and say "that's" or "that is" a lot. A few of my favorite recent repeat words after a "that's" conversation include: lemon (lem-yon), apple, antenna (an-yen-ya), bumper, chopper (for helicopter), and danger (always repeated with a mischieveous smile).

Oliver continues to love anything with wheels. Along with his bus, he now has another favorite wheel related past-time: pushing the stroller. He is also getting pretty good at sorting shapes; he can stack at least 4 blocks and he is starting to put his chunky puzzles together.

Oliver is running. So he loves to chase the cats, Sheryl/daddy/mommy, and the squirrels/pigeons at the park.

He is pretty fun these days...