It really does amaze me how quickly Oliver is picking up new words. I know part of that is the interaction he has with older kids at the sitter’s but I like to think it is also due to all of our reading time. Even the current distraction technique during butt-changing is to hand Oliver a little book that he can flip through. It works every time – he talks and points while I’m wiping him up and interacting with him.
Today I grabbed a knock knock book that goes on and on with cheesy knock knock jokes like “Olive… Olive who? … Olive you so much”. Apparently it is just the right amount of repetitive since Oliver surprised me this morning by saying “Naw naw” after only reading it a couple of times.
Directly following the struggle that is changing and dressing, Oliver picked up another fave book about ‘Bumble’ the bee. He didn’t like this one at first but I would point out the bee on every page and it became a game of hide and seek… “beeee!”. (And we never forget the cow of course… “Mooo”).
And another book from the same author is about a green caterpillar wishing she could be a different, brighter color. On the last page, where she has turned into a butterfly of many colors, I said, “Look at the beautiful butterfly”, to which Oliver said, “buh-fly”, as matter-of-factly as if he’s been saying it for months now.
Something about that “buh-fly” made my heart melt a little!