Zekey talks – a lot. He basically tries to repeat almost everything we say. And while some of it is unintelligible, much of it is clear to us. Early on, he would only say the beginnings of words – “duh” for duck and dog, “cah” for cat and car, etc. But his speech is becoming clearer now, and if we say things carefully, he’ll repeat simple words almost exactly. It’s a flood of language every day.
Here’s a partial list at 16 months, Z’s favorite words first:
no (his new favorite)
car (almost anything with wheels)
plane (anything that makes a loud engine noise)
boat
ball
football (said “fooFALL!”)
baseball
kick IT!
hike hike! (the football)
throw
dog
pancake (said “panCAKE!”)
waffle (said “waFFLE!”)
apple
peaches (said “peaCHES”)
chicken (said “chiCHIN!”)
bird (pretty much anything with wings)
duck
fly (any insect with wings, and what the bird does)
flower
bug (usually meaning lady bug)
more (always said “more MORE!”)
done done
water (wawa)
bottle (baba)
bubbles
book
shoes
socks
dada
mama
hi
bye bye
night night
moon
sun
shark
turtle (tuhtuh)
frog
tissue
door
sauce
please (which sounds like “peece”)
help (said “helpooo” which must come from us asking “Can I help you?)
poo poo (pretty funny)
toot toot (hilarious)
choo choo
bellybutton (this one is garbled a bit, but we always know what he’s talking about)
He does all kinds of animal sounds:
foo foo (for woof woof, my personal favorite)
meow
moo (which sounds like boo right now)
monkey cackle
snake hiss
rhinoceros snort and snuff (from Moo, Baa, La La La)
pig snort (sort of, he’s still working on that one a bit)
chicken (another favorite of mine – bock bock bock)
wolf ooowwww
owl whoo whoo
fish pucker
goose honk
sheep baa
horse whinney
lion, tiger and bear growl (all sound the same)
Oh – he also can identify a number of birds in our Birds of NY book. We show him a picture and he says the name of the bird. He can do:
hawk
owl
duck
woodpecker (said something like “peckpeck”)
cardinal (just the “car” part)
crow
turkey
Okay – I’ll stop there for now, but I have to remember to keep writing these down before it seems commonplace for him to open his mouth and communicate with us. Right now, it’s amazing, and hilarious.
I must add that one could easily mistake Zeke's word for frog or fog for the "f" word. More practice is required! It's still pretty cute hearing him speak.
Z's probably going to surpass me soon in bird-identification 🙂 It's awesome how much language he's soaking up!!
Hi, it's a very great blog.
I could tell how much efforts you've taken on it.
Keep doing!