Wordy Rappinghood

Oh, my gosh. Do we have a chatter box on our hands!

He probably says 15-20 words: Mama and Dada (though he uses them both for both of us; Cindy is Mama more often than not, but he calls both of us both names), Agua (means water), Cracker (though he rarely gets to eat them, not sure why he picked that up), and "Na," which means "More" (honestly can't tell if he's saying "more" or "mas"), Ducky, and Doggie. He can say "cupcake" and "cactus" (at least well enough that you can tell what he means). He can say "One" (in response to "How old are you?"). He says "gato" for cat. He can also say "Oma," "Wawa" (which is what we call Laurent), and "Tata" or "Chi" for Tante Chichi (which is what we call Celia).

He recognizes a LOT of words. We always call water "agua" with him (and he was AMAZED to find out that when it rains, there's agua on the ground), but this morning I was talking to Cindy and, in the middle of a sentence, I used the word "water" and he immediately started saying "agua, agua, agua."

Also: he knows some animal noises. He can make a cow noise, a donkey noise, and for Cosmo (or, now, for any dog), he "pants." It's funny, because we never taught him what Cosmo says--Cindy asked him one time, and he just started panting. Later he generalized that for any dog. Today, in about 3 tries, I taught him that Santa says "Ho, ho, ho." I'll try to get that on video for the holiday season.

Finally, two funny "Bear" stories. I was on a business trip the week before Big Game. On the morning of Big Game, Cindy brought Sawyer into our bed and we were all hanging out. I said, "Sawyer, say Go Bears!" And he let out a huge raspberry! Cindy cracked up; she had been trying to get him to do it all week, but it was the first time he had done it.

And when you say "What does a Bear say?" He waves a fist and tries to say "Grrrrrah!" (though it comes out "hiyah!").

Toddler in the house!

This video was taken 2 days before his first birthday.

He had started taking steps a few days earlier (in Tucson, visiting Oma & Opa, and Grandma & Grandpa K).

But once we got home he got really into walking. That week he started going confidently between me and Cindy, and by his birthday he could just get up and walk into the next room!

Now, of course, we're starting to wish we had babyproofed!

Bday pics!

We need to post some more photos later (and some videos -- he's walking around now!), but here are a couple of shots from his birthday party in Arizona and his party here (with the cake made by our awesome neighbor Lisa).