Seems that I don't listen to me, either.
I'm at just about 15 weeks, and the sickness has mostly tailed off, so yay for that. What really surprised me was the unexpected fertility of my body after four years of not wanting to know. Seems like those weird round growths in the ovaries actually have a function after all. Huh! Who'da thunk it?
Anyway, I'm not going to harp on about it too much, as this is my second pregnancy in the last 6 months, the previous one ending in a miscarriage at 12 weeks, which was an experience - and not one I'd really like to repeat. Tomorrow I'm having an amniocentesis to make sure everything's ok - but to be honest, right now I'm just keen to have another look at the ultrasound and make sure that the little heartbeat is still going strong.
But the Monkey! I really should write some updates, as without them I'm inclined to forget that the little fella IS actually making some progress! I don't know how other parents feel, but at every stage in his life, I feel that it's been that way FOR-EV-AH, and it's going to stay that way FOR-EV-AH, and I do lose sight of the fact that he is inching his way to becoming (I hope!) a fully functioning human bean!
His language is really coming on. I think he has excellent language comprehension (and no, I'm not boasting of any superior-for-age abilities - frankly, I have no idea of the language comprehension of other kids his age - but I'm just impressed by how much he does appear to understand without overt teaching). He'll follow simple instructions, mostly when he feels like it:
- "Pick up your cornflakes" (yes, because he likes to put things in containers)
- "DON'T pull the cat's tail again!" (no, because .. because .. just because)
His language production is certainly better than it was - we have moved away from "dah" as the single utterance, and we now have a few different ones. The problem is that I think he has quite a sizeable spoken vocabulary now, but a very limited set of sounds and syllable structures, that we're almost back to the "dah" stage where I need a lot of context to understand what he's saying.
I apologise here - I'm a linguistic nerd, so I'm going to be boringly pedantic at this point. So - he only speaks in monosyllables, and the structure of those syllables is almost exclusively C (consonant) + V (vowel). His consonants predominantly are [p t d k m n h w z ʔ], and his vowels [i e æ a u ə].
So, if he says [wa], it could mean "water" or "flower", depending. If he says [pi], it could be "pea", "bee", "biscuit", or "bread". You can understand that I might be a little nervous when he tries to hand me something while saying [pi]! His strategy seems to be to take the first syllable of the word, and fit it to a CV structure with the sounds he has, regardless of the stress of the syllable - though I have noticed one recent change - "banana" has stopped being [bə], and started being [na], which suggests that syllable stress might be starting to play a part in his choice. I've only heard a couple of words where he attempts a consonant at the end of the syllable: "juice" (often [duz]), and words like "hat" and "heart" [hæʔ] or [haʔ].
Anyway, I have no idea why he has decided that a monosyllabic CV vocab is the way to go, but he has. We try all sorts of implied correction: "[æ]!" he says, and "yes .. that's an APPLE", we say back.
He'll even imitate directly:
"Say 'a'"
"[æ]"
"Say 'pul'"
"[pu]"
"Say 'aPPLE'"
"[æ]!"
At some point, he's going to get multi-syllabic words, and you can bet I'm going to celebrate that day! :)
As to everything else not language related - he shows signs of taking after both his parents. He loves the ipad, and he loves books. He's quite shy when there are large groups of children, and tends to stand back and watch, waiting until the coast is clear before he'll have a go. He doesn't often fight for possession of something - if another kiddie takes something he wants, he'll either watch them making triumphantly off with it with a slightly puzzled expression, or else (if he REALLY wants it), he'll come crying to me. He's reasonably physically fearless (happy to climb up the slide), and doesn't startle too easily. Because he's been at home with us all his life, he still gets anxious when either mum or dad leave, though he's been looked after at home by grandparents a few times, and seems to settle down quite well, as long as the parents are out of view. I think he really thrives on routine as well - and we've been SOOOOO lucky with his sleeping, as he gets in bed awake, and has no trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep. What a champ!
As to food .. Well, he's probably no more picky than any other 18 month old. He will eat almost any kind of fruit (though for some reason, he detests cherries, which is a shame, as they're particularly delicious this summer). Bread, yes (plain, or with some kind of spread), salty biscuits & rice crackers (he would eat sweet biscuits no doubt, but he rarely gets the opportunity), cheese, milk, orange juice, meat (SUCH a little carnivore!), but not keen on many veggies. Peas are a huge hit, and I give him some in a bowl as a snack, and he'll eat broccoli when liberally seasoned with garlic and anchovy. Spinach (silverbeet) soup goes down a treat, but anything else is a bit of a battle. He doesn't like carrot, corn, cucumber or capsicum. Not a fan of tomato. Had a brief flirtation with beetroot, but appears to have gone off it now. Will eat things like pumpkin and sweet potato (and lentils, and a whole lot of other things actually), if mushed up in a curry-flavoured soup. Which is what I make when a) I'm feeling that his veggie intake is a little low, and b) I don't feel like puking into the soup pot. Which means he hasn't had a good veggie soup in months now.
Sigh.
Cheese makes everything better, right?
