Words

The girls love playing with spoons. I really don't know why, but they are happy with big spoons, little spoons, measuring spoons or soup spoons. When they have one, they run around yelling "Spoooon! Spoooon! Spooon!"

Which got me to thinking about how many words the girls use and know. What amazes me is their power to relate abstract depictions of objects with their real counterparts. When they see cartoon pictures of cats they say "kitty". When they see real cats they say "kitty". They saw a wood carving a cat and said "kitty". I looked at it and said, "What!!?? Oh yeah, it *is* a kitty".

They have also been using sign language for 7 or 8 months now and continue to amaze me. Having only been exposed to cartoon ducks, their rubber bath ducky, and a stuffed animal, the first time they saw ducks at the beach both girls started signing "duck". They used a separate bird sign for the seagulls and herons. Isabella's duck sign is now morphing into snapping, but that allows her to keep rhythm with the music on the radio. ;-)

It truly is amazing how much babies must learn in their first year. From learning how to move their little limbs to understanding language. Now when we ask one of the girls to go get a different book from the shelf, she merrily trots over and gets one, a feat utilizing language recognition and motor skills. I really don't know how much they understand, but I suspect it is a lot more than I give them credit for.