Common words in Bevans vocab

I went to a seminar today about speech development.
So this afternoon I spent some time talking properly to Bevan and trying to
be really in the moment with him and listen to what he is saying. I was
pleased to hear him say lots of words.

Here is the sample:
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
all done
anymore?
asleep
Bah (Buzz Lightyear)
ball
banana
bath
Bo (Bob the builder)
book
bottle
box
bubble
bus
button
byebye
car
cat
daddy
dog
door
duck
go
hello
here we are
here you go
I do
icecream
juice
mummy
no
oh no
outside
poo
rain
remote
shhhh
slide
sock
stop
swing
tele
thankyou
train
tree
truck
um
water
weeee
Yay

You might notice that he doesn't say his own name, or "me" or "mine" or
anything like that. He also doesn't say Yes, but uses the phrase "I do" in
most cases. He will often leaves off the consonents at the end of words.
Some of these words are clear and some are very garbled, like icecream is
consistently pronounced brabeen.

It is interesting seeing which words a 2 1/2 year has developed as his
essentials.

Christopher at 5 months

Christopher is doing really well.
He is babbling away and has started on solids. He is really good at solids
- he eats a variety of foods and doesn't even mind if they are chunkier
textured than just a puree.

At his plunket check he weighed 6.28kg, so his rate of growth improved a
small amount. He is 64.5cm long. Average for his age would be 7.5kg and
66cm.

He plays with his hands and likes holding toys like rattles. I found a style
of dummy that he likes and that is helping him chill out. At the moment he
and I both have coughs, which I hope we get over soon.

Counting

Bevan can now say his numbers from 1-10 outloud in order. Considering his
scarcity of other words I am quite amazed.
His language is still improving, but I feel he will need some kind of speech
therapy. I'm trying to get an appointment for him. The nearest private SLT
for children is out Levin way though, but she may be able to arrange to see
a few of Wellington region people all in one day.

Bevan also impressed me yesterday when we were at a café and he pointed at
our table number and read outloud "1". He actually read the number himself.
Not sure HOW he knew about that!

He is showing a bit of interest in numbers. He's played with my math
equipment kitsets that I got when doing Total Learning. The kits have
coloured foam shapes, dominoes, coloured shaped beads, coloured jointed
blocks, flashcards etc.. He grouped the coloured shapes into colour groups
on his own initiative the other day.

I also recently ordered from the flybuys the "fridge phonics" toy by
Leapfrog. I really like the leapfrog toys; "alphabet pal" was a hit here
too, and now Christopher AND Bevan play with it. Anyway, the fridge phonics
will hopefully help get his awareness of letters, letter sounds and the
alphabet improving.
I got the "tag reading sytem" out of the cupboard, it is an awesome toy that
I won in a competition, but is for ages 4-8. I let Bevan have a go and he
did manage to enjoy it and figure out some of the simple stuff for it. For
parents (like me) who like statistics it has a fun feature where you can
find out how long your child played with it and whether they were getting
questions right in the comprehension parts of the book. We have one book
"Ozzie and Mack", and I might look out for more on Trademe.

Bevans speech

It has been six weeks since Bevan got his grommets put in. We had a checkup
and the doctor says that his ears are looking very healthy and the grommets
are sitting in there well.

Bevan is attempting to say long sentences, although they are very mumbled
and I cannot understand them.

He is growing his vocabulary a lot. He can now count to ten, it sounds a
bit like:
"one..tooo..fee..for, fii, seis, beben, eight, niine, ten". Very cute. I
was stunned the first time he did it as I thought he could count to 3 and I
was overhearing him and he just kept on counting.

He is getting more interested in songs. He indicates to me with gestures
which song he would like. Current favourites are the babys verse of wheels
on the bus, twinkle twinkle, happy and you know it, head shoulders knees and
toes, and the tiny tim turtle song. They are all action songs and he joins
in with some of the actions.

His favourite word is No. Pretty standard for a toddler. Strangley enough
he never says Yes, but instead says "I do". When he accidentally on purpose
hurts me or someone else he will now pat us and say "okay", to make us feel
better. Actually sometimes he has been hurt and when I'm hugging him better
he pats ME on the back, haha.

He has also been busy doing a lot of art. He draws circles and spirals and
waves. He asks me to draw him cars and buses a lot. Sometimes he will point
to his picture and say mummy, I don't know if that means he is drawing me or
not.

How the boys have been

The boys have been well.

Michael is keen for Bevan to start toilet training. Yesterday Bevan had
bare-bottom time from 2pm-bedtime and he went to the potty all by himself
for poo and for pee. Wahoo. I was a bit amazed as I wasn't expecting Bevan
to be noticing his body signals as well as that yet. I hope it wasn't just
a coincidence.

Bevan has also figured out how to properly peddle trikes. I think he still
prefers to scoot along, but he can do it correctly. We took him down to the
bike park
(http://www.huttcity.govt.nz/News-and-Notices/news/Previous-News-Items/Fun-a
nd-educational-cycle-track-for-Avalon-Park/) and took his new bob the
builder 12 inch bike with training wheels. He did really well and did a
couple of slow laps. We also did some kite flying which he thought was
fantastic.

Christopher will be seeing the karitane nurse soon, so will be interesting
to see how he is going with his weight.

Grommets for Bevan

Bevan got his grommets put in his ears today.
He was a really brave boy at the hospital and he was even given a
certificate by the nurse for being a brave boy.
Michael went into the theatre with him while they used gas to anaesthetise
Bevan.
In recovery afterwards Bevan was all snuggled up in the hospital bed and he
wanted Christopher to snuggle with him too, they looked so sweet together.

Michael took a photo of Bevan in his hospital gown. We have to figure out
how to get it off the phone though before I can share it.

Christopher's plunket visit

Christopher is now three months old.
He went for his check up at Plunket and he now weighs exactly 5 kilos (11
pounds). He is still tracking along the 3rd percentile for his weight
gains.

He's 60 cms now, not much different to the height Bevan was (61.5). So he is
a lot leaner than Bevan.

He is doing lots of clever things like holding small rattles and bits of
fabric. He enjoys sucking on his hands. He is a real delight with his
smiles and baby gurgles and squeaks.

Grommets!

Bevan is all set to get Grommets in his ears on Friday.
We are going through a private specialist, because the waiting list for
public treatment is quite long.
When the specialist checked his ears she found he had glue ear in both ears.

I'm hoping that the grommets will help him with his hearing and so then help
his speech.

Bevan at the park

We went on a lovely play date today that the boys really enjoyed.

I took this photo at the park. Bevan is looking quite grown up now.

Christophers baptism outfit

Here is a photo I took of Christopher wearing his gown and bonnet.

Unfortunately we didn't really get any good photos on the day.