brugman*

Listening to Squirt expanding his vocabulary. How he learns to capture what goes on around him. How he gets better and better at telling me what he wants, what he sees. Amazement. He'll come out with a word I can't remember 'teaching' him (like 'couch'. Unlike 'nincompoop'. Which I did teach him, and it comes out fluently.) and it just puts a huge grin on my face (and his)! Watching this progress in such an up-close way, on such a micro scale is... amazing! Educational! & definitely entertaining :)

He's got a very absolute two-word-sentence limit. Whenever he tries to add a third word to the mix the last two words become a missmatched hash - which is funny in its own league. Glasses, worn for sick-day ease, were a source of mixed entertainment (note to self: get glasses fixed - they perch precariously now). 'Glasses on' worked. So did 'mamma glasses'. 'Mamma glasses on' invariably became something resembling 'mamma gl..loop' (actual NL: 'mamma bl...lop'). The only exception to this rule is 'mamma water drink' (excuse my skew translation of toddler-Dutch to English - I can't do a better job without losing the essence here). I guess his mind thinks 'water drink' is one word. The technical implications of an exception like that boggle my brains, but I'll leave it to the experts for now. I'm too sure I'll miss something if I take a time-out to excavate the science!

I love how he tries words on, for size. He'll drag mamma, pappa, oma, opa AND Moroccan friend N into the mix to see if it works on all of us. This boils down to us all owning cars together. Or eating, being outside or in, upstairs or down, at work, at home, wearing shoes, socks, having legs and tummies. Still fine, communally speaking. More questionably, we're also taking a shower and going to the bathroom, as a group ;)
He also knows when something or someone isn't 'here'. He'll answer 'gone' (NL: 'weg') when asked. I think that's so cool :)

He seems to understand certain concepts, but not others, which is interesting. Yesterday, he was having lunch at the coffee table - just for the fact that I was too tired to sit up at the dinner table (still flu-ey). So I was lying on the couch watching him eat, and out of the blue, he pointed at the table and stated: 'table'. I was appropriately impressed so he proceeded: 'food table.' Yesss! Pointing at the couch, I asked him what it was. 'Couch.' This was going really well :) 'Mamma on the couch' was met by his 'mamma couch'. 'Food?' met by 'table'.
So when I asked: 'where is mamma?', I was told I was on the table. Of course. As you are.

Which goes to show we're not quite there yet. Thank goodness! Because I'm having way too much fun watching and listening to him trying it on and spinning it as only a toddler can!
There will be plenty of time for him to talk me onto a table, or into a corner, in neat compound sentences. If his progress is anything to go by, he'll become a master at that, a lot sooner than bears thinking... But please: not for a long time yet!


* Brugman: Father Brugman (1400-1473) was known for his fiery sermons. His name has far outlived him in the Dutch expression 'talking like Brugman', for someone who talks much and quite convincingly.