Words

Joshua's vocabulary has been growing a lot over the past couple of weeks. It has been fascinating to this language-lovin' Mama to witness his speech development. It is funny; as much as I studied language development, I could not have been prepared for this process! Joshua had been mainly using a few sings to get his point across to us, but now he says lots of different "words." I just realized a day or so ago that he probably says 30+ words, but I wouldn't necessarily have called them "words" at first.:-) It seems like I hear him say something nearly every day now and that light bulb blinks in my head.... ooooohhh, that's what that means! It's like we are learning his language as he learns our language! And each time that light bulb blinks, Joshua seems just as thrilled as we are that we understand him, so he says his new word over and over and over again. I imagine it is nice to be understood when he tries so desperately to communicate at times!

On a more nerdy note, I have thought about the definition of a word as this process has continued. It is one or more units of sound that carry meaning. That is what makes me realize that Joshua is kind of speaking English, and we are kind of learning "Joshua" at the same time. :-)