Use Your Words

This is actually a running joke now at our house and mostly used by the husband. Noah was an early walker but definitely not an early talker. So when he's trying to communicate something to us, the husband jokingly says "Use your words" to our 13-month-old. Ha!

If it weren't for the fact that Noah understands a lot of what we say, I would think he was having hearing problems. He's not going to be able to pull that excuse on us ever - he can totally hear us. He's never even had an ear infection (a.k.a. no fluid in his ears). Which got me thinking about the list of words/nouns that he does understand.

A good friend put something into perspective for me as well regarding tantrums and communication. Tantrums are what toddlers are supposed to do but more times than not it's due to a lack of their ability to communicate. Since then, I've worked hard to get down to Noah's level when he's starting to become upset. Hopefully I can figure out what's going on and although he can't express himself using words, we usually make do by pointing and talking about everything in the vicinity that could possibly be the cause of a meltdown. (By the way, 9 times out of 10 it's because he can't reach a toy he was just playing with or it won't "work properly")

When he does start talking, he has a good vocabulary list to choose from, that's for sure!

Noah's Word Bank:
Mommy
Daddy
Yes
No
Kitty
Doggy
Water
Cup
Passy
Bottle
Blankie
Truck
Car
Mr. Monkey
Bear

Book (Noah Book, Truck Book, etc)
Shoe
Diaper
Outside
Upstairs
Downstairs
Grandma
Grandpa
George (Curious George)
Brobee, Muno, Plex (Yo Gabba Gabba characters)
Cheese
Eat
Bite
Ball
Airplane
Bye-Bye
Light
Fan
On
Off
Open
Close

I'm sure I'm forgetting some but looking back on this list I think we have plenty of basics down for the start of a beautiful communicating relationship!