Speaking of milestones, I think we may be starting to see that "language explosion" that was supposed to take place around 18 months (the boos are now 25, almost 26 months old). Almost every day we notice new words and phrases. Baby B, who doesn't have quite as much language as Baby A, has acquired a useful phrase: "I don't want that." He says it quite clearly. The problem is that he says it about everything, including things he wants. We don't know what he thinks it means.
Their collection of nouns is increasing too, and we are amused by what's being added to the list. The other day Baby A brought me one of their stuffed Audubon birds, a quail, and said to me "Kayu." Startled, I agreed that it was a quail. A day or so later I was holding him as we walked past a metal quail sculpture that we have, and he pointed to it and said "Kayu" again. So I have to accept that not only can he recognize a quail, he knows the word for it too. How many two-year-olds who don't even know their colors know the word for quail? Baby A also knows the word for crow: "Coh" -- but that's because we have a children's book called "A Crow's Journey." Confusingly, there aren't any crows in Ridgecrest, just ravens. I don't think he has a word for raven yet.
Another new word that both babies have is spider: "By-du." We thought this was mostly based on pictures of spiders in books, although we certainly do have spiders around here, oh yes we do. Today we went back to the Desert Tortoise Natural Area, and while we were taking a hike, Baby A pointed to a tiny scurrying thing and said "Bih by-du!" I said "that's not a spider, is it? isn't it an ant?" (The babies know about ants -- they call them "bees.") Rocket Boy and I peered with our aging eyes at the itsy-bitsy little thing. "By-du," Baby A repeated. Sure enough, it was a by-du, though not a bih by-du -- it was one of the tiniest by-dus I had ever seen. Somebody has very good eyes!
We had a real treat at the DTNA today -- there was an actual tortoise there! This was our third visit, but the first tortoise we had seen there. The ranger greeted us as old friends and took us right out to see the tortoise. He's in the photo at left (the tortoise, not the ranger), hiding under a spiny hop-sage bush. Later, after everyone stopped staring at him, he came out and walked down the trail. The babies have seen a number of tortoises recently and they both have a word for them, which sounds something like "tor-teel." They keep hearing people say both tortoise and turtle, and this is what they've worked out as a word for these creatures.
On Friday the babies and I visited the home of another tortoise club member to see how he's built pens for his adopted and foster tortoises. I studied the pens for a long time and took photos, so that RB and I can build similar pens in our yard. The babies were intensely interested in the tor-teels and their pens, and that night there was a lot of fighting over their two stuffed turtles and their one little plastic turtle.
On Saturday, during the babies' nap, RB and I laboriously built our first tortoise pen. This involved, among other things, getting some bricks out of the garage. Several by-dus were displaced in the process, including an absolutely enormous black one -- I think it was four inches long. When the babies got up from their nap, we took them outside to see our handiwork. They inspected the pen with great interest, then looked up at me questioningly. "Tor-teel?" said Baby A.Stay tuned...
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