If a picture is worth 1,000 words...: September - December 2010

I am so over-scheduled and under-rested, (especially with regards to trying to earn a little money here and there) that personal computer time has suffered. I hope to start writing about natural living and natural mothering again, if only to document for myself what I've learned along the way (should I ever find myself needing to learn it again). But for now, my goal is to keep an up-to-date monthly journal of my little one's transition from baby to boy.

In order to catch up with three months, here is a picture journal of some of my little boy's current antics. He loves:

Dressing up, especially in high heels!




Putting the key in the ignition and turning the car on!


Commandeering every skateboard and bike he sees on the road or in the park!


Learning to count in Thai while jumping on fabric swatches!


Taking good care of his monkey!


Posing for cheese!

A former linguistic major, I am most fascinated by the opportunity to watch a little one learn a language from scratch. It's like my own research subject up close and personal.

• Regarding phonetics and phonology, the fricatives (sounds like f, v, th, s, z, sh, zh) were the hardest for him to get. All fricatives became /h/. One day, he started saying them at the end of words, and he usually does that just fine. But even now, he rarely can say them at the beginning of a word.
  
• Regarding syntax, he started out copying me like a parrot and so used "me" or "I" for "you", and "you" for "me" or "I". (Interestingly, he never confused his subjects and objects, as I've been told many other babies do.) I decided not to correct him, and sure enough he eventually figured it out on his own! One day last month, almost literally overnight, he switched the words to their proper usage, and now uses the words "I", "me", and "you" appropriately, and also began venturing into the world of "we" and "us".
• On another syntactic note, he typically misplaces negative words. I don't know if this is normal, or if he is confusing English word-placement with Spanish word-placement. But I am excited to watch his little brain figure it out!