Monkey Says – January 2015

On my recent Mini Milestones post for Monkey I made a note of some of the really cute things that Monkey says at the moment – but of course I forgot loads – and some of my favourite little phrases of his. I really don’t want to forget these over the years (my memory is atrocious) so I am making a note of some more of these here, (and there may be an uber-cute video of him at the end :)).

I am not sure where it has come from but he keeps saying “D’oh” at the moment. He has never watched The Simpsons and I don’t think either hubs or I say it, but Monkey totally says “D’oh” more like “D’oooooooh” in exactly the right circumstances, it’s pretty hilarious!

Everything with Monkey is a “Great Idea” shall we play with cars? “Great idea” would you like peanut butter on toast? “Great idea.” Even when he says something like, “go outside” and we repeat with would you like to go outside, “Great idea!” lol.

Our little Monkey likes things the way he likes them. There is ever so slightly a touch of OCD about it. He has always liked lining up cars and having things a certain way. If I don’t put his drink or “cerewal” (cereal) in the right place at breakfast it’s “Not this way, this way” when he moves them into the correct position. His chair has to be at the right position too otherwise he will get off and move it. He also says “too tight!” even when he doesn’t actually mean it is too tight, more that it is not quite how he wants it to be!

He also has a pretty strong mind, making declarations about something. Like he counted some biscuits a few days ago and though he is really good with numbers sometimes he gets it wrong – but not according to Monkey. He counted 6 biscuits when there were 5. Veryg ood, but there are 5, and I count out 5. “I think there’s not” ok, well let’s count again. Repeat. See there is 5 biscuits. “Actually I think it is 6”. This happens quite a bit, he will decide something and if we contradict him “I think it’s not” or “I think it is.” Love him!

He’s very bossy at the moment too “Come on Mummy” “Come on Nanny & Pops” dragging them by the hand! When he can’t find a toy he wants and I say I don’t know where it is he says “I don’t know either… try and find it, can’t be far, must be somewhere!” Sometimes while looking for it himself and other times trying to convince me to help him find it!

There are some other just cute things he says, “Hello There” as a greeting. “We’re a family!” when we are all together, often accompanied by insisting that we all hold hands (Even LM hehe).

Then there are the amusing conversations that show how much he is growing up and getting inquisitive.

Monkey: What does the moon eat?
Me: What does it eat??
Monkey: (very decisively) The Moon eats Smarties

After one of his first sessions at playgroup

Me: Did you have fun at playgroup?
Monkey: Yes
Me: What did you do?
Monkey: Ate toast read stories guin (gluing) an stickin… I cry a bit… don’t like cry (awwww)

and then at bedtime one day

Monkey: Want it want it want it
Daddy: In a minute, lets get you dry
Repeat until Daddy loses his temper and very firmly says “No”
There’s a little stare off between the two of them then but Monkey breaks first.
He chuckles and says “don’t like No”

Then I have to share this video, we don’t get a huge amount of snow where we live near the Fens so it is a bit of an event when we do and Daddy happened to have his camera out to catch this cuteness! (If you click on the cog at the bottom you can adjust the quality)

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Little Hearts, Big Love

Our little reader – 28 mths

Storytime at 3 mths old

Storytime at 3 mths old

We have read books to Monkey since he was tiny. Both hubs and I love reading books to him and it has been a major part of the bedtime routine since he was just a few months old. As a result, Monkey loves books. He is constantly bombarding us with books saying “go read, go read, go read” until we comply with his demands!

Now that his speech is rapidly developing he likes saying words and pointing out the names of things in books. He’s also ‘reading’ or rather he has memorised some of his favourite books and joins in with reading them. One of his favourite books (at the moment) is one that Daddy doesn’t even like, “The Tiger who Came to Tea”. Monkey loves it. He goes through fits and starts with lots of his books, insisting on the same one for days at a time, and then moving onto another.

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Monkey’s Musings at 28 mths

Regular readers will know that Monkey was a late talker, and there was a time when I worried about his speech development. Then he started talking and let’s just say that I certainly don’t worry anymore – he is a real chatterbox these days and we love it!

So I thought I would share with you some of our favourite words and phrases that he has come out with lately. Questions seem to be the order of the day lately, he is so inquisitive!

 “What you doin there?”

This has to be one of our favourites, and he says it all the time. He has been sayong it for a while but it very much came out as one word so we didn;t really realise what he was saying at first. A very garbled “whauodoiere” was how it started. Eventually we realised what he was saying and his pronunciation is getting clearer by the day. He walks into a room, “Hi Mummy/Daddy, what you doin there?”  He has been sat next to us on the sofa watching TV and will suddenly ask “what you doin there Mummy?” We walk into his bedroom after nap time “what you doin there?” It’s hilarious and another situation where we have realised we must ask him that question quite a lot – as he can only have picked it up from us!

“What’s dat noise?”

Another pretty constant question, generally accompanied with a hand up to his ear. Sometimes it is easy to answer, it’s an aeroplane, it’s a lawnmower, it’s the TV etc, other times it is a bit harder. In the bathy one evening, one of the millions of toys he had in the bath was making a slight noise and the question was repeated endlessly. I heard Daddy try to respond a few times but onviously Monkey wasn’t convinced by his answer so kept asking, and asking, and asking and eventually there was a very loud “I don’t know! It’s just one of your toys!” coming from Daddy as the repetitive question started to drive him completely potty.

My favourite instance was one morning when Daddy woke up early, around 6.30am, I was snoozing happily so Daddy crept out the room trying not to disturb me or Monkey. But it seemed Monkey was already awake and heard Daddy open our door, as immediately there was a shout of “What dat noise? Daddy? Daddy?” from behind Monkey’s door! Lol! Poor Daddy not a minute’s peace!

“What dat?”

Sometimes accompanying “what’s dat noise?” sometimes just about everything and anything. He has to know what everything is! At least we aren’t at the why stage yet, “What’s dat” is usually easier to answer… though not always!!

He really is at the stage where he repeats nearly everything we say and likes to narrate his little life. When we were out playing with bubbles the other day I was chuckling away to myself as he ran after them shouting: “can’t get” “too high” “come back.” It was just so cute!

He  can also be quite demanding and he knows what he wants. Generally revolving around food but I was quite impressed when he  woke up from his nap one day last week and said “Hi Mummy, cup a tea?” We are working on please and thank you, though please currently sounds more like “twease” and thank you is more of an “apfu” somehow. We are getting there though!

Then there are the more random outbursts. One of the most common outbursts is

“PatJessTedBen!” usually shouted as an exclamation. Sometimes when he is angry or upset, or disappointed it’s “Oh no! Oh dear me! PatJessTedBen!” We know he loves Postman Pat but quite why this has become his exclamation of choice I have no idea. It actually started off just as Pat, then PatJess, then PatJessTed, and now has been PatJessTedBen for a while. We keep wondering whether another character will be added. Ajay perhaps? or Charlie?

I could probably go on forever, but these are some of our current favourites. I love being able to have sort of conversatiosn with him and his little personality really shines through with all his chattiness.

What little phrases do you love to hear from your little one?

Wot So Funee?
Ethans Escapades
#BabyBabble

Think before you speak…

Monkey’s speech is developing so quickly and improving by the day. He tries to repeat just about everything and his pronunciation is getting a lot clearer. There are still times that we have no idea what he is saying, but most of the time we can work it out and some things he says are just so clear.

With this development, which we absolutely adore… we are really having to be careful what we say now. I nearly called it a phase but let’s face it, once they start talking and repeating things they don’t really stop, so this is it now, we have to be careful what we say from now on!

The most obvious words to avoid are obviously swear words and I am surprised how well we are doing with this. My language has always been… er pretty colourful, particularly when stressed, so there was definitely a time when I worried about Monkey’s first words being slightly rude. Somehow though it has completely changed and I am now almost anti-swearing. I guess maybe it’s because I am with most of the time, swearing almost feels wrong to me. At the wedding we went to last week someone swore and for about 5s I forgot that Monkey wasn’t with us and took a breath in…. then realised no kids were present so relaxed again.

Hubby is doing pretty well too, and I mean neither of us are 100% perfect and occasionally we gently correct each other but so far thankfully Monkey hasn’t picked up on any naughty words. What he has picked up on though is some of the random little phrases that hubby and I say without realising. I think everyone has things that they say regularly without realising. Monkey talking and being our little parrot we are becoming more aware of these little sayings.

This has been true ever since he first started talking as the first phrase he picked up was “I Don’t Know” not something we thought we said much, but once he started saying it, we realised that we both in fact said “I don’t know” to each other all of the time, even when we do actually know, so daft! Then he picked up a very reluctant ‘okay‘ from us when we don’t want to play play-doh for the millionth time!

Another phrase he has very much picked up on now is “Oh dear me” and apparently I say this quite a bit, as opposed to swearing I think! It is so funny hearing a little two year old running around saying “oh dear me.” He saw a man cutting the grass on one of those big drive on grass cutters the other day and it was “oh no! Oh dear me!!”  He drops something on the floor and it’s “oh dear me.” hehe I don’t think it’s purely me that says this though as I heard it being said on Postman Pat the other day, and as he loves it, that is a big influence on him too.

His other favourite thing to say is “No, not yet, soon” to anything he doesn’t want to do. I actually really like this one as at least there is room for maneuver. It is very rarely a definite no (though we do get those too of course) and we can then set a limit, so yes, after this episode, or after one more go on the slide, etc. etc. Again though I have a feeling he has picked this up from us, which is just amusing really.

Something else which he has definitely picked up from me is saying “I know” instead of yes. I really was not aware that I did that, but since Monkey has started saying it I have become so aware of how often I do it and I hate it! Makes me feel like a right know-it-all! Because I have been more aware I think I have been saying it less, and Monkey is definitely saying it less, which is good!

Only time will tell if he picks up any of the other things we say – hubby’s phrases are “it’s one of those things, where…” and “this is it” (hehe sorry hubs) so I wonder if Monkey will start parroting back those phrases any time soon!

Do you notice your kids repeating anything back to you? Any choice phrases they have picked up on?

Ethans Escapades
#BabyBabble

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An ‘Okay’ week

Our word of the week this week is “okay.” Not because it necessarily sums up our week, though it has been an ok week (you can read some of what we have been up to here), but because it is Monkey’s favourite word at the moment. It basically replaces yes.

The funniest thing about it is that he says it with the voice of a bored teenager, like “okaaaaay” if you insist mum, if I have to, if you really want to. Even though I know what he means is Yes! Yes! Yes!

A few examples

Shall we go on the swing? “Okaaaay” while running off clapping his hands

Him: “Chocat” Me: You’d like some chocolate? Him: “okaaay” Me: Sorry but no.

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Lots of Learning – Mini Milestones 26mths

Monkey seems to be at an age where he is learning so much- and just soaking things up like a sponge so I thought it was a good time to write another Mini Milestones post to write it all down somewhere. I also feel that a fitting word for my word of the week, is Learning.

Speech & Cognitive Development

This is the biggy at the moment really. His speech is, all of a sudden, coming on leaps and bounds. As a slightly later talker I have worried in the past and been frequently reassured that one day it will just click and there’ll be no stopping him. I wanted desperately to believe this but there was always a seed of worry and doubt at the back of my mind that it wouldn’t happen that way. But, well, everyone was right! Something has clicked in his brain and the words are flying out of his mouth.

 

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Monkey’s Speech at 25 months

Monkey is a late talker. I know all kids vary and do things in their own time, but this is one of those areas where Monkey has definitely lagged behind slightly. One of my friends’ little boys started talking at around 10 months, and most of the other toddlers we know started pretty early too.

But, judging by other toddlers at the music class Monkey goes too, and his tumble tots class, I have seen that it really is not that unusual for a toddler to not speak much until they are around the age of 2. Because it is something I once worried about (and therefore talked about a lot) I also know of lots of adults who didn’t speak until they were nearly 3 – and it never meant anything detrimental about their development.

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