Just a quick note to impress you all with Ellie's expanding vocabulary. Up until a few weeks ago, I was getting a tad concerned that she didn't have as many words as she "should". (I do pride myself in not freaking out about milestones but this one got me.) Out of the blue, shortly after her 18 month appointment, something clicked in her brain and zzzzoooommm, off she went. She went from signing "please" and saying mama and daddy and no* and puppies, to saying...just about anything we say. When she's alert (i.e. not tired) her repetition of our words is astonishing and astonishingly cute.
For instance, a lot of things are plural. We talk about the puppy, and she says puppies. And to top it off, her "s" has a little bit of a lisp, so it sounds sorta like puppiesh.
The real reason I'm making this post, though, is to update you all on the next phase of lanugage: multi-word statements! Yes! She's using two and three words together! The first time I realized that she had strung two words together was when she asked for "more bites." I said, OK, I'll get you more bites. It took me several minutes to realize that she asked for "more bites" without prompting from me and oh-my-gosh... that was two words! TWO words!!!
And only then did I realize that REALLY the first time she had used two words was when she starting imitating us when we say "Where'd it go?" And she says something that sounds like "Der go?" As an aside, listening to her say "der go?" is truly one of the cutest things in the world. If I can capture it on video I will post immediately. She's recently added the gestures to accompany the phrase: upturned palms and a slightly quizzical look. (Funny story about der go?. Anty Mary and Grandpa were here this weekend and we took some time to "hide" eggs in the backyard. Mary and Ellie were collecting the eggs and Ellie had one in each hand. Out of the blue, completely un-prompted, Ellie throws the eggs to the ground, turns up her palms and looks up at her aunt and asks "Der go?")
And this morning's big accomplishment: "I got you!"
She does got me!
Pictures next time.
*A note about her use of "no". It was cute until this weekend when she started using it to let me know she's really, really mad. Rewind to first 100,000 times she said it and it was still cute because she was starting the sound before she parted her lips, so it sounded like mmmno. mmno. Who can say no to that? Not me.
