Grazing Rites

So yesterday my girlfriend decides to give colouring with the kid another try, he didn’t quite grasp the concept but did better than before. It wasn’t the colouring that was telling, it was something that happened while they were at it.

She drew a picture of a dog and a cat and said “Where’s the dog?”

He pointed at the dog and said, “Dog! Woof!” Saying Dog and Woof wasn’t new, correctly identifying the image on the other hand definitely was new.

Then she asked “Where’s the cat?” He didn’t respond. “The cat says ‘meow’” she said.

“Meow” he said. It was the first time he had heard the word in days, if not weeks, we’d never really made an effort to teach it to him but he picked it up, or at the very least mimicked it, after just hearing it once.

Now granted they could have been covering this stuff at day care but either way it seems to have been a pretty significant cognitive jump. It’s not that he learned/said some new words – it’s that he picked one up after hearing it basically just the once. The speed of it was quite surprising to both of us. And picking out the picture of the dog – that was all new…or perhaps dumb luck but I don’t think so.

I used to joke that he wouldn’t talk much and then one day when we’re talking about something just come up and say “I disagree”. Perhaps in an English accent.

Anyways, I think we may have just moved into the language acquisition fast lane.

So, yea, be advised. Swear jar in full effect y’all.

This entry was posted on July 28, 2008 at 4:47 pm and is filed under Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.