Perhaps it was not as early as some other children, our little Ricky is gabby now. We have to be careful what question we ask because he may just answer it! His Uncle Tim asked him the other day “Can you say piggy?” and Ricky very truthfully answered him, “yeah.” All day long, I get “yeahs” and “yeps” and I am thankful that he says those instead of no. In daily conversation he answers the affirmative with yeah or yep, but if asked about food (“do you want some milk?”), Ricky will still say “yes” which we worked on for so long. Why he has made the distinction or what the distinction really is, we don’t know. He has learned who Mickey Mouse is and can say “mouse” in his cute way. Also, many things are frogs to him. Ricky says “robot” (his way of saying ribbit) and often it is in a very low voice. I have caught him making his ribbit sound for frogs, lizards, Kermit the Frog, and rabbits so far. I guess if it is green or hops, it is a frog. One of the cartoons he watches over and over is about being a ghost and saying boo, so he has learned to say ghost and boo, but a day or two ago when we were watching Frosty the Snowman, he kept saying ghost and I couldn’t figure out why. Apparently, a white, floating ghost and a round, white snowman look pretty much the same to him! Now he tells me he wants to watch his ghost show and he is talking about Frosty. Well, most of the time!
12/02/2006 P.S. We were noticing yesterday that the way Ricky says “mouse” also sounds a lot like ghost. So white and floating, round and white, and black or gray with big ears all equal an “ost” to him.