Blue

Though he's happy to play with things of all colors, he seems to gravitate towards things that are blue when given the choice. I've been trying to teach him colors for awhile by showing him a blue, a green and a red block and then saying one of the colors. When I first tried this, when he was about five months old, I was amazed that he picked up the green block when I asked. Then I requested blue, and he grabbed that one. I thought I had a genius on my hands until I asked for red and he proceeded to pick up the blue one and smack himself in the head with it. I have kept trying but to no avail. He always goes for blue. Now, I could try to pull it off by always requesting blue and amazing my family and friends with Jack's parlor trick, but that's cheating.

Anyway, today Jack SAID "blue." I'm serious. He was playing with his ring stack toy and I took the blue and green rings and figured I'd try the color thing with just two colors and see what happened. I showed him green and said the word "green" very slowly and clearly. Then I hid it and showed him the blue one. I said "blue" the same way. Right after I said blue, Jack looked at me and said, "bwah". I stared at him wide eyed but then recalled the previous incident when I thought he was Einstein and I tried it again. "Bwah". So I tried it again, pausing after I said "green" to see if he would just babble in response to any word. Nothing. Then I said: "Bluuuuue". Pause. "Bwah". I called my parents immediately eager to have a third party hear and certain that Jack would sit there and stare at me and make me look like an idiot. "Bwah". Now, I am not disillusioned, thinking that he actually knows that "Bwah" is the color blue. But he is definitely trying to mimic me.

He's recognizing a lot of new words. In addition to his own name, he knows "Mommy", "Daddy", "Peek-a-boo" (as soon as I suggest it, he bows his head and hides his eyes), "Juice", "JoJo" (his stuffed monkey), and "Kiss" (and has just started to kiss back--he puts his face into yours). So we have started trying to use signs with him to see if it will help him learn to communicate better and faster. It can't hurt. He loves to learn and I love to teach so it's a good combo.

He also is doing a lot of furniture cruising and gets pretty excited about his progress. And his progress has kicked our babyproofing into high gear!