Talkies

I've finally made the switch to keeping the baby monitor off at night. It's weird; I'm very used to the sound of it as background noise. And it definitely takes longer for me to hear Kirk when he wakes up. But eventually my brain realizes that "Mama! Mih!" isn't part of a dream and I get up.

It took me a while to notice that "mih" is milk. Kirk's gotten quite good at the few signs we've really worked on and can clearly differentiate between ones like milk and drink and eat. So I just didn't pay attention to the sounds that went with the signs. Plus, for quite a while all his words were either H or B words. Hat. Head. Hi! Hot. Ball. Bye. Book. That kind of thing.

Even though they are actual words, used in the correct context, he's not always pronouncing all of them fully. I really understand the Mom Ear that is an integral component of Baby Talk. If I don't translate his syllables, people think he's just babbling, riffing on a consonant sound. He's not up to multiple syllables yet either. But it's really fun watching his language skills develop. It seems like he's got a new word almost everyday. And the ones that he's already got down are obtaining multiple meanings. Like "hot", which started out to mean cooking and now means food and the kitchen and fire and the oven. (Kirk loves the oven. I turn the light on when I'm baking and he stands peering in, mezmerized.)

Mostly though, it's just really effin' adorable watching Kirk say hi to random people, like at the grocery store.