words

reading the mail.
and emptying the recycling bin.
but mostly reading the mail.

this may come as a surprise (insert eyeroll here), but i am a very verbal person. i talk too much. i probably write to much. but i'm also fascinated by words and language. even other languages. but that's a story for another day.

perhaps that general linguistic fixation is why john's vocabulary development is so amazing for me to watch. every day, he has a new word he's playing with. every day, there is something else funny that he's running around the house saying.

we've been working on manners a lot lately. instead of "MORE!" we say "more juice please." instead of "NO!" we're working on "no, ma'am." when someone gives john something, he says "thank you." (sometimes.) and this morning when daddy sneezed, he said "bless you!" (and then fake sneezed and blessed himself.)

so i thought i'd list a few more of my other favorite johnisms for posterity:

• counting goes like this: "two ... four ... two ... four ... one ... five ..." (and i'm just impressed he knows the names of so many numbers - we'll keep working on the order!)
• if you ask john what color something is, the answer is always "RED!" (with enthusiasm)
• anytime he hears a siren outside the house, john says, "my fire truck!" and will not be persuaded otherwise
• ambulances are "wee ooo wee ooos"
• any machine that goes in the air is an airplane. except for hot air balloons, which are, of course, balloons
• among john's favorite sesame street characters are elmo (of course), "bee bir" (big bird), "burrrr" (bert), and "ober" (grover)
• when john wants to close a door - which he loves to do - he says "push"
• he will say "i love you" when prompted, and sometimes just when he wants to, and he always shouts it and runs the words together: "ahuvoooo!"

i wish i could attach a little sound clip of each of those. they're so much cuter in his sweet little boy voice than typed out ... i also wish i could bottle up the sound of him saying "bye bye mommy. ahuvoo!" as i walked out the door this morning ... i'd save that away and could never have a bad day ever again, 'cause i'd just pull it out and hear my favorite words ever. 

and for a logophile/linguiphile, that's saying a lot.