A boy and his dog

Today Mom put on a movie Jared had never seen before, and which he apparently found quite enthralling. Mom got out the camera when she saw Jared holding the dog and looking so absorbed. He noticed the flash, though, and so here's another shot of him, this time looking at the camera.

"I not dizzy; me Jared!"

Time for a little update on Jared's language development . . . pardon the vocabulary, by the way; Mom's working on a linguistics MA and may feel the need to throw in some technical terms here and there.

Although he may not have a firm grasp of case yet (not surprising, since he's 2 and English has so little of it), this little guy is putting together complex sentences now! He LOVES to play the "I'm not (whatever), I'm (something else)" game. He's also beginning to understand how to talk about things other people do in relation to him, although they sound a little funny because of his case and word order issues. For instance, "Jared! Take it!" usually means that someone took something from him. Occasionally, he'll get a little more detailed and say something like "Manda take it ball Jared!"

It's also fun watching him learn our little phrases, especially since for now he hasn't yet deconstructed them. For example, when it's getting close to bed time and he's tired, he'll say, "Peas seep bed all night?" (Please sleep bed all night?) He's also learning to make conversation for its own sake. If he sees someone with wet hair, he'll ask, "Good baftub?" (Good bathtub?), meaning, Did you have a nice bath?

Jared is also learning to sing, even to the point of carrying a tune occasionally. Our church's nursery program , Amanda, and Dad get most of the credit for this. He sings the nursery's clean up song whenever he helps pick up. He has his own versions of whatever songs Amanda sings (which are frequently whatever songs Dad sings). He also has his own opinions about music, particularly what he wants or doesn't want just then, and he can now ask for a variety of songs, emphatically say "Don't sing it!" to whatever he doesn't want, and say "Okay, sing song again" to things he likes.

It's fun being able to communicate with Jared. :) Now, if we could just get him to make his choices positively instead of negatively . . . it is unwise to offer him more than two options, since he usually tells you what he wants by saying no to everything he doesn't first.

Reading with Dad

Jared on big parties

After Amanda's big birthday party, Mom asked Jared if he had liked the party. He immediately and emphatically answered "No!"

Now, in his defense, it was a combined birthday party, with 2 birthday kids and 19 other kids in addition to those living with us full time, which makes for a pretty busy, noisy event. Add to that the fact that he was coming down with an earache, and you can't really blame the poor little guy. Nevertheless, does this mean that Mom is justified in taking a break from throwing birthday parties, including Jared's, for the next long while? Methinks that won't hold up too long after Jared regains his health and begins to understand the connection between birthday parties and presents.

Cold!