tszee! da? tah. awesome, kid! ...but where's "Ma-Ma"?

Jaxon is not a man of few words. in fact, i believe at some point he is going to have so much to say there isn't going to be time enough in the day to get it all out. the kid loves to talk...what can i say? look at who his mother is.

i love to hear all his babbling, because, like any good parent, i can make sense out of a lot of it...or at least pretend to. or maybe i just delude myself into believing it all actually means what i think it means. either way, it's pretty freaking cool.

as previously mentioned in a past post, he says the name of our cat, Cheetara. well, he actually calls her "Chee"...though in truth, whereas before it was kind of a very breathy "Khee", now it sounds more like "Tszee". the minute he sees her, he gets super excited, reaches towards her (no matter how far away she is) and says, "Tszee!!" that's pretty awesome. the fact that he learned her name so early and has continually been refining the sound that he uses for her name. guess he's gonna be an animal-lover. that makes me happy.

recently, he has starting pointing to things and saying, "Da?" (it's a very short 'a' sound)...didn't take long for us to figure out he was asking, "What's that?" how amazing and cute is that?!?

so of course, we humor him and tell him the names of things. it's like he has figured out that everything has a name and he wants to call them their correct names--at least as correct as he can get it. it cracks me up (and in some ways slightly annoys me because of the constant repetition...sad, but true). he just wants to learn and i think that's a great skill to have in this world. curiosity. way to go, my boy. way to go.

one of the recent additions to his vocabulary is the word, "tah".  isn't that awesome?!?! not sure what it's supposed to mean?

here's how the acquisition of this new word happened---or at least a similar re-enactment:

 Jax: (pointing to the fan) Da?
Daddy: fan. fan.
Jax: Fa (he tends to leave off the 'n')
Daddy: good! that's the fan!
Jax (pointing to a metal star hanging from the ceiling) da?
Daddy: star. that's a star.
Jax: Tah.
Daddy: (slightly incredulously...and pretty damn proud, i would think) yes...that's right! it's a star!

now, i know, i know...this could easily have been a fluke. but i showed him some other stars we had around our house, told him they were stars, and there was that word, "Tah" again. and now, you can ask him where the star is and he will look at it and continues to use the word. awesome. my baby is freakin cool.  i am so happy that he is learning all of these cool words and that he wants to learn them.

and yes, i repeat things to him over and over again to get him to hear the sounds and make his own attempt at them. you know, like: "Ma-Ma. Ma-Ma. Ma-Ma. Ma-Ma. Ma-Ma. Ma-Ma." over and over again. but, alas...unless he's in his crib screaming and crying for me to come in there and pick him up, i do NOT hear Ma-Ma.or even a really close approximation of it. and that makes me kinda sad. i mean he says the cat's name...what about me?

this is how it usually goes:

me: Ma-Ma. Ma-Ma.
Jax: Da-Da!
me: no, silly... Ma-Ma. Ma-Ma.
Jax:  Da-Da-Da-Dee!
(well, at least he's got the number of syllables right...right?)
me: Ma-Ma. Ma-Ma. that's MY name. i'm not Da-Da.
Jax: Da-Da-Da-Dee!! (as he giggles and acts all cute and flirty)

so, of course, after this exchange multiple times, i'm thinking this kid is playin me. he KNOWS who "Da-Da" is and he knows who "Ma-Ma" is... if you ask him, "Where's Mommy?" he looks around until he sees me and then he gets all excited. when he hears the jingling of his daddy's keys, he looks around and says "Da-Da-Da-Dee!" or something similar. so it's not like he doesn't know. he does. he just doesn't say it. even when his daddy points to me and says, "Who's that?" Jax will either smile, turn and bury his head into his daddy's shoulder, or he'll look at something else and call that by it's name. ugh. maybe he just can't say it yet?

really, though? i have heard and seen him make the 'm' sound...so i know the capability is there. he's trying all sorts of other, more difficult sounds. but not my name. this is me when he says the name of something or someone else instead of mine: sadface.

i know it'll come. but it might be after he finally gets Chee's name right. or maybe after he says "TV"--yeah, how much would that suck? but it'll come. eventually. and then, i'm going to hear it for ev-er-y-thing. and it's gonna be yelled at me, whined to me, cried to me, and exclaimed to me. and then, i'm going to have to remind myself of how much i wanted to hear it back when he was 10 months old. 

and i'm going to love it.