some things

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, and was inspired to finally get our list in order by that posted by a friend and fellow mama-blogger (hi, G!). Um... cause you want to know what words Sam knows, right? And I feel the need to prove that Sam is following in his parents’ verbose footsteps. So, here is our best estimate of his current spoken word list. It’s a moving target, not only because he keeps learning new ones, but also because some of the ones that he was saying reliably for a while, like “ppps” for poops, he hasn’t said in months (I took a couple of items like that off the list). There are also some sounds he makes many times in a row with some urgency but which we haven’t been able to tie to English words yet so, clearly, I haven’t included those.


A
all done (ahdun)
baa (refers to sheep, but answers this too when asked what they say)
ball (baw)
bath
beach
bear (beah)
bed
bee
bike
bird (burr)
boat
book
boot
bottle (boh)
bowl
bread
bug
bus
buzz (as in what a bee does)
bye
car (dah)
cat (dah-- vowel shorter than for car)
Cock-a-doodle-doo (doodledoo)
cold
corn (torn or norn)
cup
D
Da
deer
dog (doh)
door (doah; also says this when referring to someone arriving or leaving)
drink (dink)
duck
dust
Erin (ein)
fan
fire (fah)
fish (fff)
flower (oh)
frog (fah)
gears (deas)
Giulio (Gi-oh)
hat (dat)
hot (hoh hoh, from my “hot hot”)
juice (duis)
keys (tees)
Liz (iss)
M (mum)
Mama (or lately, Mom)
mm (for cow saying moo)
mmm (when eating, to denote tastiness)
moon
more (moa)
mouse
mouth
nurse (erss; except at night, then nuurrrs)
O
octopus (pus)
Opa (Pa)
owl (wol)
pen
penguin (peng)
phone (hone)
pig
please (pees)
quack (cak or dak)
rabbit (rah)
ribbit (frog sound)
rice
S
shoes (doos)
snort (pig noise)
soap (ohps)
stairs (deahs)
star (dah)
tea
this (is)
toe
train
tree
truck
uh-oh
up (bababa, from up up up, which is what I say when picking him up)
walrus (!!)
water (wah)
whale (weah)


In other news, we just got back from our four-day family vacation in Provincetown, on Cape Cod, with our buds G. and A. We had a lovely time, enjoyed the beach one day (note “beach” above) and a beautiful dune-winding bike ride (note “bike” above) followed by a bit of time on the bayside beach (see below), and shopping and people-watching in between.






On the rainy middle day we were saved by the discovery of a fantastic children’s area in the public library, where we spent many hours lounging on beanbags talking to other parents and letting Sam enjoy the toy-filled zone (which included the best stocked play puppet theater I’ve ever seen). On the rainy end day we went for a walk. Sam spent a lot of time in the ergo on this trip. He likes the ergo-- when I ask him, as we head out for a walk/errands, whether he would rather go in the stroller or the ergo, he usually picks the ergo. It's easier to deal with stairs/narrow store aisles for me, too, and it's keeping my quads and glutes in decent shape...



We ate well, and also found that the best way to keep Sam entertained in restaurants while awaiting food is to draw/write with a pen on any piece or scrap of paper. He alternates between grabbing the pen and rendering stuff himself (“ff!” “baw!” he’ll announce as he completes a scribble) and holding it out demanding specific things to be drawn (fan! duck! walrus!) and letters to be written (A! S!).

Sam is also obsessed with going up and down stairs, which he prefers to do one at a time the way big people do, not step-level-step-level like someone whose knee barely reaches the next stair would be expected to. (And yes, he needs to hold someone’s hands in order to do this. There was much holding of Sam’s hands up and down stairs in P-town.) The trip was too short, but it’s nice to know that it’s so close—just 90 minutes by ferry. I’m sure we’ll be back. And in the meantime, we may be in the market for a bike trailer (in any case, we’re getting a bike seat for him on the back of my back, to facilitate getting to and from daycare, starting next week).

And one more pic: as promised earlier, here's Sam dancing at Aunt S. and Uncle D.'s wedding in May. We don't have video (and I haven't yet figured out how to link video here), which is a pity, because he was a wild dancing party animal for an hour and a half.