Kids say the Darnedest Things: Vol I

I have been meaning to talk about K's word explosion over the past few months. I had grandiose plans of getting it all on video and sharing it with you live and in person. But I always forget, and she seems to clam up when I put the camera on.

Around 15 months her talking, which had always been decent (she was a babbler, and of course a screamer, from early on), just went nuts. She was a parrot - anything we tried to get her to say, she would at least attempt, if not nail. In the past few months she has been working on her 2-3 word sentences, ABCs, counting, nursery rhymes and even jokes. She also has great retention for locations of items around the house, and even her grandma's house.

She can now:
recite the full alphabet song (though several of the letters are not intelligble)
count from 1-10 and sometimes up to 15
correctly identify blue and green (about 75% of the time)
correctly identifiy most common animals and their sounds
correctly identify common household objects and favourite toys
knows all the main people (and animals) in her life by name
sings - twinkle twinkle, old mcdonald, zoom zoom - going to the moon, patty cake, itsy bitsy spider
correctly identify the letter "o" (not sure why) - all other letters are still hazy

her favourite phrase is "oh no!". Of course accompanied by dumping out an entire box of toys, or letting spaghetti fall to the floor.

the funniest is she likes to tell jokes or be sarcastic. She often will call us "silly mommy" or "silly daddy", or place an object on her head (like a car) and yell "car head!" while laughing maniacally. yesterday in the car she kept taking her toy train and placing it behind her head. then she would look at me (through the mirror) and hold her arms up in a "where's that" gesture. I would say "where's the train, keira?" and then she would "find" the train and triumphantly show it to me. Just like we used to do when we first learned peekaboo.

Of course, with all this, comes the "mine" stage. Like her toothbrush, shoes, a water glass. Basically anything her eye can see is "mine". Like the train station we pass every morning is "my train" and she gets upset if I don't stop and let her play with it. I truly hope this is a short phase because sharing is not currently in her vocabulary.

Sorry for all the words. Here are a few recent pictures to round things up:

her "oh no!" face

(I shared this already on my photo blog. apologies to repeat readers)

chilling with her Aunty Tara and Uncle Alan

giggling over a private joke with her shoe

Keira is 19 months old and I am already concerned for the cell phone bill costs considering how much she talks