Mr. Manners

Leo has been Mr. Manners recently!  All of the sudden instead of saying "thank you" he'll say "thank you Mommy" and it just melts my heart.  It actually sounds more like "ki koo Mommy" and I absolutely love it.  He thanks us for everything - if we give him more food at dinner, if I give him his toothbrush to hold, if I give him the medicine cup for him to drink from, and pretty much anything else.  We have been working on this with him since we started baby sign language with him when he was about 8 months old and now he is such a proper little man.

He also says please ("peas") a lot and when he really wants something that we're not giving him, like more dessert or oranges, he says "peas Mommy" and does his baby sign for please emphatically.  Then we always say "thank you for saying please but no more oranges".  It's so sweet.  The only signs he still does are "please" occasionally, for emphasis, "more" sometimes, and rarely he'll do "all done".  We do "all done" to him more often to get an answer out of him.  Like when dinner is winding down and he can't decide if he's done or not (aka he pushes himself way from the table then wants "beeps" to be pushed back to the table, then a minute later he'll push himself away again then he'll say "Beeps.  Mommy round" which means he wants me to come around the table and push him back it) then we'll ask if he's all done by using the sign and then he'll tell us yes or no.  Baby sign took a lot of practice but it has definitely be helpful to us and to Leo, especially when he was younger and wasn't talking yet.

Also at meal times, Leo will wipe the table with his napkin (usually smearing around what he's trying to clean) like yogurt or soup.

 

When Leo sees it's time for Gavi to be burped, he takes it upon himself to come over and burp her.  He does it so gently - he just taps her on the back for a few seconds.  He loves being a part of caring for Gavi - it is so sweet to see.  He also loves giving her a pacifier if he finds one lying around.  Even if she has one in her mouth, sometimes he wants to give her the one he found so he'll pluck the one from her mouth and give her the one he has.  Last night I was nursing an angry Gavi as I was reading him a bedtime story and didn't realize I dropped her froggy pacifier on the way out.  This morning when I went into Leo's room, he was holding the froggy and he looked at me and said "Gavi, froggy", and insisted on going into Gavi's room and giving it to her in the crib where she was lying.  He really loves Gavi.  Sometimes he just goes to sit near her because he wants to:

Here are some funny other things Leo is saying these days:

• My hold it - I want to hold it
• My hold - he wants us to hold him
• Our room - Brad & Stacey's room
• Daddy.  Work.  Bus. - Every morning when I go into Leo's room, he says "Daddy", asking where he is.  One time I told him that Brad takes the bus to work.  So I respond saying "where is Daddy?" and he says "Daddy.  Work.  Bus.".  We do this every morning.
• If you tell him something one time, he'll remember it.  Like a few weeks ago he pinched his finger in the corner of the closet door in Gavi's room.  Now whenever he's in her room, he points to the exact spot and says "corner".
• Some words he is very hard headed about.  Like pineapple he insists on calling "apple".  He knows they are two different things but if he sees pineapple, he'll say "apple, apple, apple" until we give it to him.  We break the word down into pie-nap-le - we say "pie" and he says "apple".  It doesn't work yet.

Things he says VERY clearly: Mickey Mouse!!!  Goofy, Duck (Donald Duck), Minnie, Thomas (the Train), Elmo, Ernie Ducky - are you sensing a trend?

 

What Leo calls our family:

• Gavi - Gavi.  He's got her name down pat.
• Saysee - he calls me Stacey and thinks it's funny.  Then you say "yes, but what do you call me?" he says Mommy
• Brah! - he does the exact same thing for Brad.  He learned our names because we're working on recognizing letters and we showed him that there's a D for Daddy but also a B for Brad, and the same thing for me.  Leo took this and ran with it.
• BiBiZee - BiBi and Zee usually go together.  Leo works in pairs.  He knows who goes together and who is missing.
• LucyBen - he usually starts asking about Ben, then it turns into LucyBen.  But if he says Lucy on her own it's more like "Wuhsee".  We ask him where Lucy and Ben are and he says Jersey.  Sometimes Brad even gets him to say Dirty Jerz
• Gabes - this is Gabe.  He's pluralizing certain words now for some reason
• Fis - this is Chris.  He knows Erin and Chris go together and when he sees on of them, he always asks where the other one is
• Poppa and Gamma - this is Poppa and Grandma Carol.  He got Poppa really early on and Grandma Carol was tough so we started with Grandma and in the last month or two he's really gotten it!  So it's now Poppa and Gamma
• Gammy - this is Grammy, a new development
• Eric and Nanny - he's got them down pat and he knows they go together.  He hasn't gotten the Uncle or Aunt yet, but he knows if he sees one of them he should be inquiring about the other.
• names he still isn't good at - Arielle, Alissa (we're trying Lissy), Merle, and Great Grandma Judy.  These are all the trickier names - long or with a lot of different sounds.  We're working on them

Toddlers have a language of their own and unless you're really close to them, it's hard to know what they're saying.  Last week I was sitting at Shabbat dinner between Leo and Asher and between the two of them I was trying to decipher what each was trying to say - Asher kept wanting to cheers, Leo wanted more apple (pineapple) but we didn't want him to have more, Asher wanted to be lifted in his chair like Leo, Leo wanted to use his "poon" (spoon), Asher wanted more water in his wine cup, Leo wanted more juice (wine) - it was tough!  But they were both working really hard to get their points across and were doing a pretty successful job.

Gratuitous pictures from this week: