Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk

In the last several weeks, Max's speech has really taken off. It's kind of amazing. A month ago when he turned two I was doing some online searching looking for those critical speech markers of development to determine if he was progressing quickly enough. I know early speech isn't an indicator of intelligence, but, hey, I'm a worrier. Then all of a sudden, his words are exploding and he's putting them into groups. Now instead of handing me a book, he's saying, "Ree, ree. Ree Carl." He's looking out the window at some construction trucks and saying, "Go, go...see." He's pretending to count (he can't really make it past 2 right now with any knowledge of what the numbers mean, but he's attempting and sometimes succeeding in sounding out "free" and "fie"). He's getting his colors down. Most of the time when asked, everything is "blue," but he definitely knows "brow" (Ro-Ro's color - "Ro-Ro" is new too), and he's getting purple down. It helps that I've said so often that purple is "Nanny's" favorite color. The last couple of days he's also identified pink. And J. says he had him stack the rings on one of his toys, asking him to do it by color, and he could. Amazing! It's kind of early for colors and numbers, I think.

Tonight Max also said, "Wow," when I showed him a hive that was hanging from a tree. It was such a grown-up reaction, J. and I had to do a double take.

Currently he's really into the Carl books by Alexandra Day. These are most wordless books about a big black dog that goes everywhere and can do all kinds of human things. When I worked at the library, I always wondered who exactly reads these wordless books...and why? Now I know. Max does. He likes to see things progressing in the pictures and go through all of the mundane details of life - the same kinds of detail he recognizes in his (and our) life. So there you go. Currently, we've checked out Carl's Sleepy Afternoon and Carl's Birthday.

It's so fun watching his vocab and speech ability grow so quickly. Every mom always says, "You can't wait until they can talk, and then you just want them to shut up," but I'm still looking forward to him sharing real thoughts and observances. Yes, he's sometimes whiny, and, yes, most of his "Mama's" are because he's wanting (or demanding) something. But I'll take it.

As Max says, he's getting to be such a "bee ball." That's "big boy" for those not fluent in his brand of toddler-ese. :)