Communicating with Tyler

Tyler doesn't have a lot of words, and of those, there are very few that other people would recognize even if they were given context. For example, his new favorite toy is his bulldozer, which is known as "booohm". We usually only get one syllable for most words. Most of the time he gets close enough that we understand that he is trying to recreate the word we just said, but not close enough where we can recognize it later. The latest one has us baffled though. Today we asked him to say "good". The response has been the same all day: "EEEEEEE!" with a big grin. We have no idea where that came from. "Say 'good'". "EEEEEEE!"

He also has found a good track record with just trying to repeat the last word we said. "Do you want some milk?" "Nilllk". "Would you like to come up?" "UUUUUuuuup". Sometimes that doesn't help much though, like when we have him identify things. "Tyler, what is this?" "SHiiish". "No, what is it's name?" "Aaame". Or, out in the yard just now as I tripped on something, "OUCH! What the heck?" "Hek!"

And sometimes I think he understands "no", but now I am not so sure. For a few days in a row, it seemed like every time the baby cried it was because Tyler was hugging her a bit too strongly. So I kept telling him "no". And then the next time she cried (and many fussy times since then) he goes up to her and says "no, no, no, no". I guess he thought I was talking to her? And when he wants to get in my lap, he stands there and says "uuuuuup" over and over again with his arms out no matter how many times I say "no, Kaitlyn is eating right now, you have to wait." You can almost see the wheels turning. "Huh, I'm not up yet - I bet she just didnt' hear me right. I just need to keep saying it." He never even gets impatient or anything! He just eventually gives up after a few minutes and finds something else to do (though more often than not he is back quickly).

He is shaping up to be a very good big brother though! Sometimes he smothers her a bit with his affections, but last night I kept trying to distract her with her rattle when she was fussy. And the next time she cried he picked up her rattle, waved it in huge patterns in front of her, and then tried to put it in her hand. So cute!