so much to say

As a self confessed chatterbox

I can honestly say that from the day I found out I was pregnant

that I couldn't wait until a time when I would hear my baby speak.

I was so excited to be a part of the whole process of language acquisition.

It's always fascinated me that children pick words up so quickly,

and how they learn a language from scratch

and I could wait to help in the process of teaching my child to learn such a valuable life skill.

In the last few months

our little guy has got really interested in talking.

Not only does he watch our mouths intently when we talk to him

but he babbles constantly.

He just seems to have a lot to say for himself,

although until recently none of it was in English,

so all we could do was nod along

and pretend to converse with him.

This resulted in lots of frowning from him

and lots of giggles from us.

But lately his talking has absolutely exploded.

And he is using real words.

Proper, English words

that we can actually recognise and understand.

He's still a long way from being able to really chat with us

but he can communicate

and I love it.

He loves animals

and enjoys pointing out "cat", "duck" and "bird" at every opportunity.

At the moment, his first instinct is to call a cat a dog

but once corrected he'll happily repeat "dog-dog-dog"

while we grin at him for being so clever.

Lately he's been trying really hard to say "frog" and "fish" at bathtime

and he really concentrates on making the f sound

until we end up with "fog" and "fis".

When we pick up the phone he will say "hiya"

and then will often say "nana" repeatedly
as he assumes that she is the only person I ever speak to on the phone.

In fact he will often start yelling as soon as the phone rings

as if to remind us that we need to answer it and start talking into it.

He loves repeating anything we say,

so all those silly little rhymes and sayings which we use to much

are starting to come back to haunt us.

I clearly say "Oh dear" in a particular tone of voice whenever things get broken or dropped,

because I am often pipped to the post on saying it these days.

And if anyone gets hurt and says "ow"

then they are met with a chorus of "ow"

while he toddles over to check they are okay.

His latest little trick,

which I have to say makes me one super proud mumma,

is saying please.

Yeah sure, it sounds more like "peeese"

but he says it almost instantly if you have something that he wants.

And it is possibly one of the most adorable things he does.

I can't wait until he adds "thank-you" to his repertoire,

mainly because I think once he's mastered "hello", "please" and "thank-you"
that he'll have the makings of good manners.

I think it would be fair to say

that I find him learning to talk every bit as exciting as I suspected I would.

I get a familiar and regular rush of pride

listening to him finding language

and enjoying communicating.

The look of total concentration on his face,

when people are saying something that he wants to learn, is totally gorgeous.

We've come a long way from those first initial babbles and words.

His first recognisable ones were "mum-um-um" and "da-da-dad"

but lately those words sound a lot more like "mummy" and "daddy".

And it quite honestly doesn't get any better

than hearing your baby call you that.