First Word and Other New Tricks

Well, it's official. Graham's first word is tractor or "taktor" as he says it. As one of Mommy's friends said "You can take the boy out of the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the boy!" He can recognize a picture of one and say the word. He's said it many times now too. Of course he can already say Mama, Dada, more, and uh-oh. Occasionally, he will say "bobble" for bottle. Recently, he has started saying "no" too. When he does something wrong, he'll stop, point his finger and say "no!" So he knows what he is doing is wrong or at least that it gets a "no!"

His other new trick is blowing kisses. They taught him this at daycare and the first time we saw him do it was for Nana who of course just melted. He's also learning his colors at daycare. They have been doing colors since we moved to Busy Bees but it is only in the last week or so that we have noticed that Graham is picking it up. He said "blue" last week and could bring his Daddy the blue ball when asked (there were multiple of all colors in his play pen). Today on his daycare form, it said that he said "green" and did the sign for it. One of Mommy's favorite new tricks is that he can pick up his toys! Last night he put his stuffed animals in the toy bag/hamper in his room. Of course I clapped and tried to give as much positive reinforcement as possible. (It seemed to work too!) I can say "let's put up the toys" and he knows what to do. He's also trying to put books back on the shelf but hasn't quite got the hang of which way to turn them. He gets frustrated and hands it to me.

Although in a previous post I wrote that I regret putting a bookcase in Graham's room (and that's still mostly true), most nights after his bath, I sit in the floor and play with him and the bookcase. He pulls books off of his shelf and brings them to me to read. Sometimes he will plop down in my lap (which I just love). Sometimes we make it through an entire book and sometimes not. He'll bring me another one to read before I finish. His favorite books make noise, are touch n' feel, or about animals or tractors. One of his favorite books has all of those features except make noise. It is a touch and feel tractor book that also has lots of animals in it. It's perfect that the tractors are different colors so we use to to talk about colors too.

Graham got a few puzzles for his birthday. Even though they said 12 months and up, Graham has not quite got the hang of puzzles. Instead, the pieces with wooden handles become cymbals that he bangs together quite vigorously. I would not want to get caught in the middle of them! Tonight he did manage to get the orange circle in the correct slot and seemed pretty proud of himself.

When Graham saw the tractor above in the toy store, he practically jumped out of his Daddy's arms because he wanted down so badly. I guess we know what he will be asking Santa for this year. =)