Joaquin turns 21 months our first day back in the Philippines and before I miss another blog milestone, I thought I'd write on the past couple of months. These months are best characterized by an explosion of language. It started with "awesome." We often would say, can you say [...]? and have him try and repeat it. Sometimes he would and sometimes he wouldn't and most would be monosyllabic words. One night we said, can you say awesome? and he comes out with awe-shum...a two syllable word! From there, everything was fair game...can you say [...]? Yes! Absolutely he can say whatever we ask him to now! From there it evolved into him repeating after us without prompting and many revelations for us on just how many words he actually knows. Who knew he knew the word couch? We never tried to teach it to him, it just came out one day...the mind is such an incredible thing.
The latest evolution occurred last night. Gid picked him up from daycare and he was crying, crying, crying for me on the way home. I come home and he calms down...after he calms down (about an hour later) I say, "I heard you were upset when you came home with daddy." He nods and says, "Daddy. Cry." I say, "I know, why were you crying?" He says, "Mouth. Hurt." Sure enough, I look and his mouth is swollen...I think he has molars coming in. But a full conversation! So exciting...the little guy surprises me every day.
20 months is also the first time we haven't taken his sign picture. It's been a perfect storm for us the past few months. Joaquin has been sick quite a bit and with my grandfather's death, school, and work the days have escaped us. As soon as we landed, we're off again to celebrate Gideon's Lola's 90th birthday. It's nice to have a celebration to look forward to!
