Toddler's a word a day

"Paesste. Paesste.", said LG one evening swiftly waving a tube of black glass paint toward me. It took me a minute to understand what he meant. It' not often that you hear my son talk any more than the very-emphasised "Mummmy" or "Pleeeeeease" or "Baschh".

Then in the morning at the bathroom two days ago, I was squeezing the tooth paste onto my brush while he was positioned comfortably in his potty seat for the morning ritual, when he blurted "Blusssh." I almost dropped my tooth brush in excitement when I heard this. He is giving me a heart-break by suddenly transforming from a ten-word-vocabulary kid into this surprise a word-a-day one. I ensure my ears are clean with no signs of hearing impairment whatsoever for fear of missing the surprise word everyday.

I wonder if this is what they call the vocabulary explosion. This milestone has been equally exciting as the other ones. For a moment, I thought maybe this was way better than the rest now that my child can communicate a few words and we can have a "conversation" - so what if it's a fake one! the real one can wait - I don't want him to grow up so fast. But then, I thought about all his previous major milestones such as the first turn on the eve of his third month birthday, the first time he crawled a few inches after making us wait in anticipation, the first steps at fifteen months and the first time he uttered a word - "akka" - in a shop. Each gave me a high and was equally exciting as the rest. The best part about this whole developmental thing is it comes when you expect it the least and on its own - I mean you don't a teach a 3-month-old how to turn unaided or I didn't teach the 15-month-old how to take his first steps (he didn't have a walker).

Some of the words LG says now are really music to the ears like "daaaaaa du" which is well prompted and said with so much care and affection that his grandpa rushes to his grandson where ever he is. I think the word he picked most effortlessly was "thatha". I said "thatha" once and he repeated as if he's been saying it for ages. "Papa" is always said with utmost care in a hush hush tone that you have to pay real attention to hear it. I know LG is coming home from his park trips as he calls out "mummmmy" from the bottom of the steps. I never trained him to call me "mummmy", it was just a plain "amma" as I call mine. So it was quite a surprise as to where he had heard the word and related it to me. Things kids learn!

The funniest of it all is when he calls up The Seniol and says, "papa stuuuu" for "Papa study." Who else do you think taught him that?