20 Month Vocabulary Count

Jack understands everything we say, it seems. He also repeats anything you ask. And he LOVES to talk. From the time he wakes up, until he falls asleep, he is talking. Right now he is trying to string tons of words together. He already makes short sentences but is trying to make longer ones. However at 20.5 months Jack can say:

hi, bye-bye, come on, Mommy, Daddy, Nonny, Poppy, Grandma,cow, duck, bird, goat, sheep, farmer, phone, letters, numbers, Time out, No hitting (kicking, pushing), Harley, Inky, light, la luz, bath, agua, leche, Jeopardy, do it, I race, truck, car, airplane, train, boat, bulldozer, crash, on up, down, monkey, circle, oval, heart, octagon, rectangle, star, triangle, square, rhombus, more, strawberries, grapes, apple, banana, pizza, meat, Jack's show, milk, football, Teddy Grahams, fishies, doggie, kitty cat, gato, tiger, lion, elephant, rhino, hippo, snake, school bus, shark, dolphin, I'm a genius, diaper, poo-poo, pee-pee, potty, jump, potatoes, chips, green bean, green, blue, red, yellow, orange, black, purple, basketball, moose, pumpkin, trick or treat, barn, shapes, draw shapes, key, hot, hat, cold, moon, sun, music, llama, balloon, push, window, bat, pillow, kiss, hug, more kisses, more hugs, give me it, book, story, night-night, Randy (stuffed cow), Jo-Jo (stuffed monkey), Bunky (stuffed monkey #2, tree, leaves, grass, outside, open, close, please, thank you, welcome, room, remote, eye, nose, mouth, teeth, hand, leg, foot, toes, tummy, belly button, turtle, slide swing, eat, good boy, shoes, socks, clothes on, Mommy working, Daddy too, Mommy beautiful, pool, towel, ready, cloud, rock (as in Rock a Bye Baby), soap, lunch, dinner, la luna, nice, sana, boo boo, correle, oh no, oh my gosh/goodness, noodles, rice, applesauce, bubbles, yucky, yummy, spoon, fork no screaming, house, home, seat, video, birthday, Happy birthday to you, yay birthday, computer, song, Gummi song, Ballgame song (Take me out to the Ballgame), ABC song, Birthday song, face, wet, throw, P.U., fast, snack, bar, colors, go, yes, no, play, go play, go bye bye, waffle, egg, Cheerios, Crunchies (cinnamon Chex), Where da...?, sleeping, Daddy sleeping, back, let go, don't touch, peach, chicken, toast, Mel, look, watch, good one, nice/good shot, sister, Dani, baby, giraffe, I win, clothes on, shoes on, lightening, skunk, rabbit, camel, shake your booty, spin, round and round, oops, oopsy daisy, zebra, horse, spider, geese, seal, antalope, head, wow, all gone, all done, Laurie (Berkner), go night-night, fan, cake, I love you, oh no, out, flower, bite, what, running, walking, glasses, kite, stop, sign, light, okay, stinky, sopla, be nice, behave, help you, mano, cookie, cracker, fruit, ice cream, Dora, Diego, Wonder Pets, Wubzy, Franklin, Yo Gabba, no breaking, Jack, close, hide, say cheese, Mommy's purse, hiccups, salud, bless you, wait, rocket, roll, bib, sandcastle, sailboat, funny, cute, smart, show me, Fresh Beat, mailbox, beep-beep, strong, arm, turtle plate, coffee, coming, comes, hold on, this, again, dance, otra vez, sit here, don't push cat, puzzle, be careful, mark set go, wait a minute

And I may be forgetting some!

He says a lot of words from his books (which we read every night). Here are some things he says. I'm not sure he knows what they all mean but. . .

Click, clack, moo
Animals
Jungle
Gloria,
Bugs
Monsters
Mother
Green hat
bunnies

He also:

does animal noises (moo, baa, meow, bow wow, quack)
knows the alphabet (can identify every letter), says in order of song but misses some letters
knows and can say numbers 1-20 in English
recognizes numerals 1-12 and 20 by sight
numbers 1-20 in Spanish (skipping 15 and 19)
identifies shapes (circle, oval, heart, star, octagon, rectangle, triangle, square, rhombus)
identifies colors (blue, green, orange, yellow)--he sometimes has trouble
identifies and points to body parts (head, eye, nose, mouth, teeth, ear, face, hand, leg, foot, toes, tummy, belly button)
points to most pictures in books that you ask him to identify

Time Out!

Jack has a little bit of a hitting problem. He hits when he is angry. He hits if he is wrestling with Daddy. He hits (very lightly) to get our attention, should we dare to be giving less than 100% attention to him. Anyway, he's been getting a few time outs for hitting so we can nip this behavior in the bud. There are a few glitches in our plans, however:

1) He doesn't seem to be fazed by it. We plop him in the Time Out corner and he sits there like a good boy and finds a way to entertain himself by counting, saying his A-B-Cs or just chatting away.

1) He makes us laugh. The other day he was trying to get my attention, so he was testing me by lightly hitting me. There was nothing nasty about it, he just wanted my full attention. Finally, I got fed up and turned to him, "Jack, do you want a Time Out?" He looked me in the eye and said, "Yeshhh". I guess negative attention is better than no attention at all. We had to turn away so he wouldn't see us laugh.

3) He makes us laugh. Two days ago when Grandma was watching him, he was playing. He didn't hit at all but decided to walk over to the corner. He sat down. When Grandma asked him what he was doing he said, "Time Out!". Maybe he was just thinking of doing something bad and put himself there.

4) He makes us laugh. Today, he hit Paul while wrestling with him. When we yelled at him, he said, "No hitting Daddy! Time out!" and promptly walked to the corner and sat down.

Hey, Babe!

Today Paul was playing with Jack in the family room while I was making dinner. I had a question for Paul so I came into the room and started my query with, "Hey, babe?" Jack looked up and said, "Hey, BABE!". We are REALLY going to need to watch our mouths around him! I think the kid is part parrot.

Oh my NOODLES!

Jack has been using the phrase, "Oh my (insert word here)" for awhile now. Some favorite closers "gosh", "goodness", "Nonny", "Poppy". However lately, he finishes the sentence with whatever he has accidentally dropped from his high chair. Yesterday it was "Oh my RICE!" and last weekend it was "Oh my NOODLES!"

*********

Today at dinner, Paul held up five fingers and asked Jack, "how many?" "Five!" said Jack. I thought it was just a fluke so I held up four fingers. "Four!" Then two fingers. "Two!" He got every variation without problems.

Shorts

Jack has been saying "Where's the. . ?" for awhile now. If I hide or if he wants me and I am not around, he will generally say, "Where da Mommy?". Today, I was getting changed and he came into my closet with me. He then backed into the wall underneath my clothes, and said, "Where da Jack?"

*****

Tonight we went out to dinner. We took Jack to the Barley House, an Irish pub with tons of signs and decorations all over the place. (He was very good throughout dinner too!) He turned and looked around the huge room and all of a sudden, pointed and said, "Ok-gan" (octagon). Paul and I didn't know what he was talking about but looked up and amidst all the clutter, he had found a sign that pointed the way to the bathrooms. And the sign was, indeed, the shape of an octagon.

Teddy Grahams

Teddy Grahams are one of Jack's favorite snacks. He usually excitedly calls out "Tedddddies!" Today we got home from work and he was in his high chair eating them. He looked at us and then said, "Teddy Gwahms!" Then he proceeded to count his 3 Teddy Grahams. He looked down and pointed at each one saying, "One, two, three!" At first I thought it was a fluke so I took away one. He counted two. Then I added two. He counted four. This kid is ridiculous! And here I was worried that I was focusing so much on words (which I like) that he would be mathmatically dumb (like me!)!