The Great Narrator

They say to help teach your child language, that you should talk about everything you do, narrating your day in hopes that some of it will stick. I've been doing this for some time and it is obviously working, but today, I had a revelation.

If you narrate your every move so that your toddler will learn, they will learn to narrate their every move.

C now tells me everything she's doing while she's doing it, often in triplicate (a habit I must have).

Heard daily around our house:

"Wash, wash, wash" (while washing her hands)

"Dry, dry, dry" (while drying her hands)

"Rock, rock, rock" (while rocking her baby or while being rocked by me)

"Clean, clean, clean" (while helping me dust or wipe up a mess)

"Up, down, up, down" or "step, step" (while on the stairs)

"Socks and shoes" (while putting on socks and shoes)

"Eat, eat" (while pointing to food she has deliberately dropped on the floor for the dog)

Other favorite phrases:

"It's okay"

"Oh no"

"No, no, no"

"It's all gone" 

"Mik pease" ("milk please")

"It's a cow! Mooo"

"It's a puppy!" "Puppies!"

"Hi!"

"Bye!"

"Car! Beep beep!"

Watch what you say. Nothing is a secret around here!

Peas and Cookies

At 20 months old, Catherine is learning new words every day. She's pretty good at repetition, repeating words after my identifying prompt; but, she surprises me every day by using a new word correctly all on her own.

We've been working on "please" and "thank you" a lot lately. Mostly, anytime she wants something, I say, "say please," and she responds with "peeeeease." It's adorable, but she hadn't quite grasped the purpose of that word yet. That is, until last week. She was eating goldfish for a snack. When her cup was empty, she brought it to me, turned it upside down and shook it to show me it was empty, and said, "peeeeease."

It was the cutest sound ever. 

So, of course, I gave her more goldfish. Then, she asked for a pony and I said, "okay, whatever you want!" (kidding...)

The other word she suddenly started using lately is "cookie." I mentioned before that her current favorite book is The Cow Loves Cookies. It's about all the animals on a farm and what they eat everyday, but the cow only loves cookies. It's pretty cute. 

Since we read it every day (some days more than once), I've been stopping when reading to see if she could finish the sentence. I point to the cow and she says, "cow"; and then I say, "but, the cow loves..." and she excitedly says, "cookies!" It's not necessarily a new word for her. She has identified her play cookies correctly for a while now. But this weekend, while my parents were watching her, she brought her book to my mom, held it up to her to read, and said, "cookies." 

She's learning to ask for things she wants in a way we can actually understand and it's so exciting to watch her learn right in front of us. Plus, hearing that sweet little voice politely say, "peeeeease" melts my heart.

If she plays her cards right, and asks politely, it's going to be hard not to buy her that pony...