Syl is 18 months old, and she's learning how to talk. The language stage that hits around 18 months is one of my favorites - you start finding out so much about their little personalities. They're all sponges, but you really get a taste of what they've been absorbing when they start repeating it back to you.
You're also reminded of all of your verbal tics. I apparently say, "All right!" whenever I finish a task. A couple of weeks ago, Syl was following me around while I vaccumed the upstairs. When I finished, I declared, "All right!" She repeated me - "Aw-RIGHT!" And now, every time she's done with whatever she's doing, she'll trill, "Aw-RIGHT!" Chris's is "Oh boy!" He's usually the one who goes to get Syl out of her crib in the morning, and lately, he's been greeted with "Oh BOY!"
The word she says most often is "NOW!" As in, "Ahn [I want] outside NOW!" Or, "Ahn cookie NOW!" Whenever the sitter comes, it's "Ahn bee-men [basement, where the playroom is and where the sitter takes them while I finish cooking supper] NOW!" We've been trying to get her to switch "please" for "NOW!" and we've had a little success. Now (heh), when she wants an apple - which she eats whole, without me peeling or cutting it - she'll say "Ahn app-uh PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAS!"
Adam's having a good time teaching his sister new words, and he gets so excited when she repeats something now. "Mom! Sylvie said Halloween!" ("Ha-WEEN!") A lot of the time she has no idea what she's saying and Adam's having fun getting her to say tricky words like "ambulance" and "delicious." She's also - finally - saying Adam's name. When she started talking several months ago, she could name all of us - Mama, Dada, Dutch - but she wouldn't say Adam or Brother or anything, really, for him. Now she calls him either "Bruh" or "Dadam" and he is thrilled. We're pleased, too, more for Adam than anything else. It was so pitiful when he'd lament, "When will she say MY name?"
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Adam is nearly five, and he simultaneously seems like such a little boy, but also so grown up. He loves reading more than just about anything else. He's been practicing his writing at school, and yesterday he started copying words from books. He also loves to color now, something that he'd never spend more than a couple of minutes on the past few years. His interests have expanded from trucks, trucks, and trucks to include dinosaurs, pirates, knights, weather, space, robots, and science. He LOVES science. A lot of folks have heard this story, but it's such classic Adam that it bears repeating. Several months ago, we had a library book about some cat who called himself a Man of Mystery. Chris asked Adam if he was a man of mystery, and Adam replied, "No, Dad. I'm a man of science!" Man of science, indeed.