Lost (and then found) in Translation

I've been meaning to write of the boys' vocal expression for a while now. I remember when I was really worried that they might have a speech delay. 6 months ago, I counted their words to make sure all was normal. All was normal. Then the concern over them stringing words together. And like clockwork, they have delivered.

Ozzy is now speaking in sentences. Lots of two word combos over the past few months, but now 3,4 even 5 word thoughts. "Abel bedroom with binky!" "Ozzy hug Maddie school!" It's beyond adorable and every day I wake up looking forward to hearing what he's going to say. And with this development, his pronunciation of words has improved crazy rapidly. We can pretty much understand most of what he says. He's even saying his teacher's name, Ms. Corazon, which I can hardly even say. And with that the transition of his brother's name has officially taken place. At 18 months, Oz called Abel, "baby!" at 20 months that became, "Abie!" and then a few months ago we started hearing, "Abel!" It's strange to hear him only refer to his brother by his proper name, given that we pretty exclusively call him "Abie." But for his own name, he firmly refers to himself as "Ozzy!"

Abel is still in the realm of two word combos but he has recently made huge strides and is in earnest trying to communicate thoughts as sentences. His favorites are, "I know!" (as in I say, "Abie, mommy is right behind you," and he replies, "I know!") and "No way!" Apparently no is just not a strong enough sentiment. Abel refers to himself in nickname (Abie). I don't think I've ever heard him use his full name. And Oskar has been, "Ahya" up until yesterday. We woke up to Abel yelling, "Ozzy! Ozzy!" to wake up his brother. I'm totally bummed that Ah-ya is no longer...so sad!

With all of this happening, I thought I should document some of their idiosyncratic words for posterity sake, before they're gone for good.

"Bee!" - James the Train
"Go-goh" - Gordon the Train
"Mah-tas" - Thomas the Train
"Mannie" - Matilda the dog, or their friend Maddie at school
"Caukey" - Coffee
"Teedee" - TV
"Pay doh" - play dough
"Wellow!" - yellow, Abel's absolute favorite color
"Oh-joo" - orange, Ozzy's favorite color
"Blah-Blah" - moon (Abel said this for a while and we could never figure out where the heck it came from)
"Zhou-shi!" - sushi
"Joo-joo" - jiu jitsu
"Wee-Wee" - lee-lee (their grandma)
"Our car" - they said this before they started stringing words. They clearly know car is just car, but I think they heard us using the possessive so much that they exclusively call mommy's car, "our car!"
"Ree er Ree er!" (as in the sound) - fire truck
In fact, they still ID lots of animals by their sound, instead of their proper names (even though they can say the animals' names!), including dog, cat, elephant, horse, snake, etc.

It's truly amazing to have reciprocal conversations with the boys now. They've understood everything for so darn long, and it's just a joy to now hear their thoughts and observations. And I can only imagine how fantastic it feels for them!