Too & New

We have entered the stage of Carter putting words together and it is so much fun! He definitely has an opinion and can usually tell us what he wants. This can be good or not so good. A good example - "more grapes please." A not so good example - "Mama move feet" when my feet are resting on the ottoman - his favorite puzzle working spot.

We still have to do a good bit of interpreting and have to resort to asking him to show us what he is saying from time to time. But we learned an interesting statistic at his 2 year check-up. Our pediatrician told us that generally, you should be able to understand 1/2 of a toddler's words at 2, 3/4 of a toddler's words at 3, and all of a toddler's words by 4. I think 50% is pretty accurate for us right now. Some are just tough, but a few he has down quite well.

NEW:

We have quite the little consumer on our hands. He loves anything new. Thankfully, not everything "new" has to come from the store. Each week he is THRILLED with his "new books" and "new dvds" from the library. At the end of most days, he asks Daddy to build him "new tracks" on his train table. I recently picked up a pack of dinosaur cards from Target in those wonderful dollar bins. Those "new dino cards" were a hit for a good 2 weeks. At first he loved just taking the cards out and putting them back in the box. Then we started putting the dinosaur cards on top of an alphabet puzzle we had worked on the ottoman. We did this at least 25+ times.

TOO:

Lately, he has been on a kick of including whoever is around in whatever he is doing by adding the word "too" to the end of every sentence. At dinner last night, I encouraged him to take another bite of tomato and he says "Mama eat mato too" followed shortly by "Daddy eat mato too" and sometimes even "Baby eat mato too." There have been some silly ones also. Yesterday when he woke up from his nap he was a little gassy. At some point I said, "Did Carter toot?" and he said "Yes, Mama toot too." He was a little upset that I didn't cooperate. Last night we were outside enjoying some cooler temperatures and our neighbor came over. Carter started running circles around our dogwood tree, his new favorite outdoor activity. When Nelson came across the street he encouraged "Na Nas" to join him by saying "Na Nas too!" over and over again.

It is so fun to watch his vocabulary and conversation skills develop.