My singing boy

Miles has begun to sing.  Sometimes the songs are recognizable.  He can sound out an interesting approximation of the Alphabet Song.  I know when he's trying to sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" because he does the hand motions.  But today, I heard him chanting something that sounded like "Ahseh, ahseh, all... Dahn!"

Knowing that he says "all done" I figured this is what he was saying.  But he kept chanting the line over and over.  Then I realized what he was getting at; he was singing "Ring Around the Rosie."  Jeff shook his head over the first recognizable song being about smallpox.  Go figure.

Sometimes his singing will be an amalgamation of all the songs he knows and it sounds like he is just composing his own.  It's not bad, either.  He obviously has his daddy's musical genes.

In this way, he's also starting to "count."  When we heat up his bottle in the microwave, we count down the seconds.  He has begun imitating the tone and approximating the sound of the numbers.  Smart baby!

Language Development Despite Ear Infections

This is the time of a toddler's life where language just explodes. Even a little guy with hearing problems like Miles  starts picking it up left and right. It's amazing- the desire to imitate takes over and he just picks up everything we say and everything we do. Everyday there is a new word or new sign or new discovery. It's so much fun.

The other day we picked him up from daycare, gave him dinner and got him ready for his bath. As we took out his hearing aids, I saw that there was a yellowish goo in the tubing of his aids and then realized that the tubes in his ears were doing their job. He had developed the beginning of an infection and the discharge left his inner ear and flowed right up into the tubes of his aids. Yuck. A visit to the doctor and a few days of drops and he is doing much better.

Miles has discovered technology. We can no longer work on the computer while he is awake because he wants to play with it. He loves the telephone and has long "conversations" on anything that even looks like a phone. He has also discovered the DVD player. He isn't really interested in watching the TV (though he does enjoy a Baby Einstein video now and again.) He just likes opening and closing it, putting in new disks and pushing the buttons. He also really enjoys our cameras but it makes taking photos of him difficult as, whenever he sees the camera, he wants to play with it. So we don't have too many photos of him at this phase in his life. However, I'll add a few ranging from about December to now. One of the more recent ones, I had to sneak up on him and use the telephoto lens. As soon as he realized he was being photographed, he started coming after me!

You can just imagine the caption for this one!

New, new, new

So we are in our new home. We're still up to our ears in boxes but that will decline dramatically once spring break comes along.
Miles is now going to a new daycare. This place is a very small daycare facility run by a young woman out of her home. She only takes a maximum of four children on any one day. Most of the other children are younger than Miles but one is just a bit older. Our daycare lady commented that when the older child is there, Miles acts like a "big boy." When he is surrounded by the babies, he is whiny and clingy. This is a bad omen for a future baby in our family!
One thing Miles has learned from this older boy is to say "uh-oh." He uses it appropriately (like when he drops the yogurt container on the floor) but he also just likes to say it. The other night I had put him in his crib for bedtime and turned the monitor on in the kitchen. I heard him cooing to his teddy bear, singing to himself and listening to his music. Then he starts saying, "Uh-oh, uh-oh." I knew he was just practicing but I certainly stopped short thinking, "Hmm, should I go up and check on him? What's he saying 'uh-oh' about?"
Very cute.
The words are coming fast and furious. Though as I say this, I also laugh about this past week's situation. I made a very concerted effort to get started with Early Start in Santa Clara County as soon as possible. We met up with one of their teachers last Tuesday. I was trying to get Miles to perform for her, to show her signs that he knew or to say words that he knew. Jeff likens it to the cartoon with the singing and dancing frog who will only perform for his owner.
So, trust me. He is starting to talk! Check out the list of words and signs on the side of the blog.