We talk to Brenden a lot. Jenny tries to give him a running commentary on whatever she’s doing if he’s nearby. Mommy is making a sandwich. This is a banana. You like bananas. What color is Mommy’s shirt? That sort of thing. I try to talk to him about events – what we did today, whom we’re going to see tomorrow.
We picked it up from our friend Renee. Traditionally, some adults like to use baby-talk with very young children and even some older children. They use a higher pitch and speak a mixture of real words and nonsense, assuming they don’t understand. I never really thought about it until we watched Renee talking to her kids. She spoke to them like they were real people who understood every word she said. Obviously, she knew they didn’t, but apparently they understood plenty. We were really impressed with how eloquent they were as a result. So we’re trying the same approach with Brenden.
His vocabulary has really increased over the last month or so. He says some things consistently now, such as Momma, Dadda, YaYa, water (wa-wa), Elmo (Mel-mo) and mower (mow-mow). On occasion he also says many other semi-distinguishable words, including Holly (Ha-ye), Jedda (Edda), cracker, and pretty. Sometimes he says a word once very clearly but won’t say it again for any reason. He won’t say most words on command because he’s stubborn and doesn’t want to be our trained monkey, but we keep trying. Naturally, he says plenty that leaves us scratching our heads and nodding blankly. However, between his words, pointing, and baby sign language, he can often get his message across. Mealtime is one of the hardest times because he can’t say the words for most foods. He points in a general direction, signs “please”, and depends on us to figure him out.
What really amazes me, though, is how much he can understand. We ask him if he wants a particular food that he’s had before, and he might tell us yes or no, and his answer generally corresponds to whether he’ll actually eat it that day. I can give him simple instructions, such as “go show Mommy the mail”, and often he’ll do it. (if he feels like it, of course) We can ask him if he needs a diaper change or wants to go to bed and get an answer. We’re having a blast trying to teach him English and watching him learn it.