Words words words

Now that we have Asher more or less walking, I have of course started to apply my parenting neuroses to the next big thing and have started focusing on words.  The family story goes that I came out of the womb talking (and have clearly never stopped) and so it stands to reason that Asher, while not much of a biped, might air on the side of being an early talker.  At least in my head it does, though professional I am not.  So, when we were at our 18 month checkup, the doctor was impressed with Asher’s vocabulary and asked if he was stringing any words together yet.  I said that I kind of thought that he was, but wasn’t totally sure, and Dr. Ogan said that we should keep at it and that by his 2 year well baby visit, Asher should be putting at least a couple of words together.  Then I remembered my mom telling me a story about how she realized at some point in my early life that I had memorized ALL of The Cat in The Hat, (cleverly duping a couple of folks into thinking that I knew how to read, I might add) which made me think that since the only book that Asher will sit through right now is Green Eggs and Ham, maybe we could start there.  I’ve been waiting to say anything about it (other than mentioning that he can say Octopus on occasion) because I didn’t want to put the cart before the horse, but we’ve been reading the book about 100 times a night, carefully stringing the words together super slow and making Asher repeat them back every time.  If he starts to babble or say the wrong thing, I just stop him and calmly ask him, “what do we say?” and he will start over and pick it right back up.

Ya’ll.  He can say “I will not eat them” and “Sam I am” and “Not in a box”, and I think that last night he tried to say the part about the fox.  I almost fainted the first time he did it, and Drew has been at work all week, so he didn’t really believe me.  Drew was home last night, so he finally taped it for us and of course I have to share it with you.  It starts with me reading, and then Asher.  Watch out world, we’ve got a full blown talker!