The Word Nerd

I love words.  I love scrambling words to form new words.  I love playing word games.  I love words.

Yesterday on the way home I had the pleasure of riding with Rachel's nieces Grace and Ruby. I had a blast talking with Grace and playing all of her games.  (I should mention that people hate when I make up car games.  Okay, by "people" I actually mean Mark.  He always cringes when he hears me talk about a fun game I've just made up to pass the time.)  Grace had wonderful word games, which I enjoyed tremendously and it definitely helped pass the time in the slow going bumper to bumper around Mille Lacs Lake traffic.  

Back to the words...

Grace happened to ask me how many words Anthony knows and she preceded to make a list. (God, I love this kid!  I wish she lived in Becker so I could have her in class this year!)  It turns out the list was a lot longer than I realized.  Anthony has been learning and saying a great deal in the few months of being home.   He's come a long way and says way more than hat, hot, ball, oh oh and num-nums.  

Here's his new list of words to add to his first five:

dada

mama

more

baby

ice

cheese

bubbles (Hard to decipher sometimes...)

boy

eye (Just said this on Saturday)

bug (Also hard to decipher, but he's definitely meaning it when he points to a bug or two or three...)

owie (This is a constant because it grabs our attention...)

Elmo 

yah 

no

[Drum roll please] PAPA!  (This morning while looking at pictures he pointed out Grandpa Willie and said papa.  I then showed him a picture of Grandpa Marv and he said the same thing. It was fun to hear and see him connect the new word with the person in the picture. Watching him learn and grow has been such a joy!)

So he may not be a complete Word Nerd yet like his mama; however, it really has been fun watching him explode with language.  He definitely understands what we are saying and is doing so much "talking" lately.  I'm sure in the next few weeks and months there will be new words added on a daily/weekly basis.  I'm looking forward to hearing him share what's been on his mind and actually being able to understand him.