Words and Signs

As TJ progresses through his second year, we are approaching some big milestones.  I enjoyed the transition from describing his age in weeks to months, and once he's two, I resolve to use years (and fractions no smaller than quarters).  Another big milestone is his communication.  Although his pronounciation is poor at best, his vocabulary is growing very quickly, so Raminta and I decided to document his early words (signs and spoken) for posterity. 

It may also be worth noting that all words are either a sign or a spoken word.  He doesn't seem to see the point in learning to say words for which he has a sign.  The only exception is his eat sign or anything else that is urgent (e.g. help) is often joined by noise-making, mostly to get attention or convey urgency.

Here's the rundown as well as some fun editorial tidbits that convey some of his personality and creativity.
For both signs and words, "*" denotes signs that TJ created/invented himself.

Signs:

• milk/nurse
• chicken/bird
• eat
• cheese
• berries
• more
• all done
• help
• *water - touches or pinches tongue
• *shoulder ride - pats himself on the head to ask for a ride, definitely my favorite of his inventions
• *ice - gnashes teeth together, which took us about a week to decipher
• bunny - pointer finger extended and hopping (poor one-eared finger-bunny)
• thank you
• please
• wave - as in bye-bye
• fist bump - he also enjoys high-fives and handshakes
• blow kisses
• *listen - anytime he hears an interesting sound, he holds a finger up, as if to say "wait, i hear something!"

Words:

• dada
• mama - sounds like "bubba"
• up
• down
• dog
• cat - just the "t" sound
• eye
• out
• ow - he loves pointing at his knee scrapes and letting us know they are "ow"
• no
• yeah
• *oh - which is his universal affirmative, the longer or more pronounced, the more significant the topic
• cow - which is his attempt to "moo" that sounds like "booooo"
• *pig - sounds like a hard "k", the sound a Minecraft pig makes when it dies
• that
• Sidney - "sis-si", our neighbor who is his age and is his BFF
• car
• hi
• yuck - which is almost exclusively used in place of the noun "dog poo"
• ball - a ball or any sport, whether is uses a ball or not (he loves watching football and soccer)
• *yogurt - actually the unique "letl-letl-letl" sound of tongue darting in and out of lips, his own invention
• basketball - "ba-ball"
• uh-oh - used anytime anything falls down, purposefully or not
• moon - sounds identical to balloon
• balloon - sounds identical to moon
• go - often preceded by "gibberish, gibberish, go" as in "ready, set, go"
• cheers - he loves clanking glasses for "cheers"
• boat? - we think he knows this one, mostly from watching his dad kayaking
• choo-choo