Taking the Scenic Route

I read someplace that Zane’s vocabulary should be about 450 words and got sort of depressed and started looking at some speech delay sites.  As I am reading, Zach goes and pulls out some cheese and Zane walks up to him and asks “cheese?” (can I have some cheese).  It was nice timing.  He might not have a 450 word vocabulary, but at least he is progressing, and he is doing it fast.

His list of words:

1. please
2. thank you
3. your welcome
4. yes
5. juice
6. cheese
7. numbers 1-20 (so, does this count as 20 words…lol)
8. alphabet (not really words, but sort of cool…he also writes it out at times)
9. cookie
10. no
11. our names, but never to us (asks where dadda is when he isn’t here and vise versa)

He also sings along with songs and has been doing that for a while, but that is a different part of the brain than verbal ability, so it doesn’t really count as verbal ability.  He is starting to get a bit better at being in tune.  He used to be pretty monotone when he sang, but he is starting to modulate a little more and every once in a while he is on pitch, andd a bit more frequently he is near pitch, so that is pretty cool. 

I think he is going to skip stick people in trying to draw and just go directly to “normal” people.  He gets frustrated that he can’t quite get it right.  For example,  he draws one arm, then what I assume is the body and then can’t figure out how to get the other arm in there…or it is the second arm and there isn’t room for the body…what ever is happening it is ticking him off.  All of his people have to have a lot of hair. lol.  Sometimes the hair will take over the entire head, but then so does mine.  hee hee.  He can’t/won’t tell us what he is drawing so I just have to guess, but a lot of his drawings look like 3D bowls and cups (oval top with a rounded bottom).  I am trying to figure out what else they can be, but when he adds a handle to a coffee cup looking thing, I just can’t see anything else in it.  I wish I knew if it was a doodle or if he really is drawing in 3D, because I can’t imagine a kid this age drawing in 3D, but it sure looks like it.  If only he could tell me.

Last night when he started counting (he counts everything endlessly) both dh and I started counting with our fingers along with him.  (woo hoo…something he can count that he carries with him) He immediatly tried to make his fingers do the same thing, but couldn’t quite get the 3 or 4 so he came over to us and “made” our fingers count while he said the numbers. He was really concentrating when we did the 3 and 4 trying to figure out how we made our fingers do that.  It was really cute and I loved seeing his face light up and see how proud he was of himself.

In general it was a really rough day yesterday.  He was really clingy and wanted me right next to him all day with more rolling on the ground and kicking tantrums than I can count.  *sigh* 

Teletubbie tucked in for the night

Of all of the cute stuffed animals he has, he has chosen this teletubbie that was given to us at a garage sale by the person selling stuff.  (She was closing up shop as we drove up).  He isn’t really attached to it, but it is the only one he has actually played with.

This is Zach

This is Zach with a camera and five minutes of free time.