Joshua's Growing Vocabulary

Hi!  We're still busy unpacking and organizing, so I'm going to skip the photos and just fill you in on Joshua's growing vocabulary.

Katie was much more of a talker; Joshua is much more mechanically-minded.  He is always trying to push any button he can find and figure out how things work.  He would be content to flip light switches all day. Once I needed to keep him occupied in a hotel hallway so I showed him how to use the ice maker.  He pushed it and pushed it and pushed it -- I could have been Pavlov since he just couldn't get enough of the reward of watching the ice fall.

So needless to say, he hasn't been all that interested in talking until recently.  He enjoys making noise, mostly by screaming, but also "singing" along to "Jesus Loves Me", "Elmo's World", the ABCs, and the "Muppet Babies" theme song.  Singing here refers to making random noises including grunting and raspberrying, but I can tell he's trying to do it along with the song.  Make ANY joyful noise, Joshua!

Last time I wrote, Joshua had three words: "Dada", "Mama", and "Caca" for cookie/cracker.  That night Joshua kept saying "Caca" as he pointed to his diaper, and I was wondering about that since "caca" is Spanish for "poop" (but I was pretty sure he wasn't bilingual).  It turns out that he was pointing out that Cookie Monster (aka "Caca" for "Cookie") was on his diaper.  I was so excited to see him break through and express a new thought with his words!

In fact, Joshua's vocab mostly consists right now of Sesame Street characters: "Caca", "Melmo" for Elmo, "Buhbuh" for Big Bird, "Bird" for Bert, "Gaga" for Grover, and my favorite of all -- "Tsss" -- his word for Ernie because that's how Ernie laughs.  I love it.

I should mention Joshua's fourth word though: "Muppet Babies."  Yes, he said dada, then mama, then caca, and then "MuppaBaby".  REALLY?  But I promise you that's true.  He first said it as John came to  pick him up from his crib after naptime.   And now he uses it to ask to watch TV -- and of course, his favorite show, Muppet Babies.

Other words/ understandable sounds:
"Ligh!" (light)
"a i a i"  (trying to sing the ABCs, as in "H I H I")
"hi"
"goodni"
"ooh ooh" to bark at Bella and other dogs
sheep and horse noises (sounds more like a laugh)
"geh down"
"baby" (mostly used to ask in shorthand for Muppet Babies)
"Daniel" (taught to him by his Uncle Daniel but said repetitively as he chases Katie's best friend Daniel around the yard)
"Papa" (Grandpa)
"No" (used for both yes and no)
"Peasss" (please)
"ball"

I'm sure I'll think of more and then I'll add them to this list.  Thanks for reading!