our little talker.

{santa barbara :: montaña del oro}

Rowan, you're a runner and a good listener. You're helping to make mama a better listener too. Your first word was actually a sentence 'ooh dis' (meaning what's this?) around 15 months. Your first signs were more and milk, but it's so hard to remember when we knew you were making your version of these signs. 9 or 10 months? You still make the milk sign somewhat frantically like you did when you were a baby. Now you are 17 months old, and you're 'ooh dis?' sounds a lot more like 'what's this?'.

Signs you produce in the approximate order appearance...

• more
• milk
• eat
  
• up
  
• car
  
• bird
• shoes
• ball
  
• where (made up sign)
  
• dog (although usually you just bark)
• baby
• dance (made up dance moves; i love your dance moves)
  
• vacuum
  
• truck 
• book
• where the wild things are wild rumpus
  
• monkey
• flower
  
• train
• moon (made up sign, pointing up)
• light
• elephant (made up sign using an arm as the trunk lifting upward, because that's how mama always made the elephant sound, before she looked up the real sign)
• banana
  
• bridge
• please
• butterfly

Words you say or other sounds to signify objects/actions...

• what's this? 
• no (shaking your head while doing something you're not supposed to do, like throw a hard object or hit the plants)
  
• arf arf arf (dog)
• vrroom vrroom (for car, vacuum, truck, train)
  
• bye (for bye and good night)
  
• hot (you also say this for bright sunshine, for ground that hurts your bare feet, and for cold.
• baba (dada in turkish)
• choos (shoes)
• hi (the sweetest hello)
• ah ee ah ee (while putting your hands in your armpits to mean monkey)
  
• meow (cat)
  
• mooo (cow)
• light (sounded the same as hot for a while)
• ağaç (tree in turkish. You started saying this on our trip to yosemite while we were walking up to the top of Nevada Falls. You, heavy boy, were on my back in the Ergo and started lifting up my arms; each time you did I'd stretch them out, lift them up and say fly, while you'd giggle.) 
• kiss (actually just the super cute muah sound you do sometimes when you kiss us or your dolls)
• mama (very occasionally)
• raaawr (for tiger, lion)
  
• gook (for book)
• kuck (for truck)
  
• off
  
• home
• bus
• pweese
• on
• bop (combo of ball in turklish: ball + top)
• down
• wat (for water)

And, since I started writing this a while back and new words are coming to you every day, this is not an exhaustive list. Yesterday we were eating strawberries and I looked up a video sign for strawberry. The way you looked up to me and smiled, each time I restarted that 30-second clip. Which I of course had to play over and over again, because you loved it so much and because you asked me so nicely.

Even though I sometimes felt discouraged about teaching you signs--because maybe we started really early and it seemed like a long time for them to really take hold--I am so thankful for the places signs have taken us. I love that you can share your memories and thoughts with us by doing the butterfly sign or the airplane sign. Maybe it's not a complete conversation, but I then know that you are thinking about the airplane we saw earlier, or that you want me to read the book with the butterflies in it. Sometimes you're just checking in to make sure that the airplane sign still has the same name: airplane, uçak. 

And while, I've never read any research to this point, I think the signs have helped you understand that one object can have different names. When I say, Rowan, do you see the trees?, you do the sign for tree and say ağaç. We are clearly communicating. This is so much fun.

I love you, little boy.

your mama