"Please"

Learning to talk (plus adventures with a hair dryer):




So I am amazed at all of the little ways that language has started to become part of Seth's life. He can understand so many things and he can follow simple commands too. He started talking way back at 6 months when he'd say "Mamamamama" when he was upset. He started "Dadada" a few months later and also was pretty good at "more" and "all done" in sign language. Now he uses "all done" (sign language) for anything he's sick of-- including car seats. Then came more advanced language. It started with him answering "where" questions: "Where are your shoes?", "Where is the dog?". He'd go find them or point to them or look for them. Now he can answer more complex statements like "Pick that up and bring it to Daddy", or "Let's go ni-night". For someone who just finished her masters in how to teach English to students I find this extra fascinating. He did go through about a 2 week phase where he was saying "noooooo" a lot just as a sort of babble. I tried eliminating no as much as possible (substituting "not now", or "let's try this instead") and also saying the word "yes" as much as possible. It seems to have worked... or he just skipped out of that phase momentarily. We shall see. Anyway, he's started copying words and experimenting with words. He usually whispers his words (he said "hockey" a lot at the hockey game and that sounds pretty cute when it's whispered). Today's word made me especially excited because he wanted to say "please" all day. He could never do please in sign language because it entails rubbing your chest and that always reminded him that he had a bib and then we'd spend the next 20 minutes trying to keep the bib on him. So it's a nice victory that he has started to say please again. The first time he did this was at the beginning of July but he had stopped for a while. Oh, and I should also explain the hair dryer in the video. We'd used it in the garage and he LOVES motors of any type (vacuums, garage door openers, lawn mowers, etc.) and he happened to find it on the floor. I started taking this video because I thought it was so funny that he'd decided that this was his new best friend and was carrying it everywhere--including giving it rides down the slide. Some things are too funny to stop. Anyway, hopefully you like the video. Then there's this second video. I was watching the first video when Seth woke up from a nap and I put him on my lap to watch it. I wasn't paying attention to if he liked the video or not but then I heard him. As I ask on the video "can you say 'please", he, sitting on my lap whispers "pluh". This second video was my attempt to catch that because I thought it was fascinating. I'm sure these aren't nearly as exciting to anyone else (maybe a few people in my language classes) but I was amazed and had to document them.