Speaking in Consonants

At about 17 1/2 months, Jonah has had two big changes in his talking. First, he has started saying words that have two consonants instead of just one. The last few months, we've heard babbles of "baa" (bar, bath), "ffff" (fish, hoof), "sss" (star, snake), "moo" (moo, moon), and more.

Last week he came up with "tck", which means "tickle". Jonah and I have a daily routine when I come home from work and go to the bedroom to change my clothes. I throw him on the bed and tickle him. He tickles my belly button. He also started saying "cck" (cookie) and "dt" (dessert). Jonah gets five Sesame Street alphabet cookies after dinner every night -- if he eats enough beans, tofu, or "me" (meat) -- and asks for it.

The other great change in Jonah's talking is that he has started parroting Michele and me. He is willing to tackle any word that we ask him to (tonight he tried "fishing pole"), and a lot of the time he will say new words without prompting.

Jonah still has a long way to go before he is doing Hamlet, although he's not too far from "to be or not to be."