Object Recognition, Words and Body Awareness

Within the past week or so, Gavin and Wyatt have been taking off in recognizing a wide variety of objects, trying to sound out the words, as well as their continual learning different body parts and what they do. I just had to take the time to record just how much they are leaping forward in their awareness of the world around them.

Object Recognition

• As I have mentioned in previous posts, I've been 'teaching' the boys the names of 'objects' since the time they were 1 week old. A few months ago I recognized a great leap forward in their learning ability and awareness and began to teach more intentional. The past month or so, we've taken learning even further by doing a lot of hands on exploring; a lot of this being outside. This past week, we've found a balance between outdoor and indoor fun/learning (typically going outside once in the morning and once in the afternoon for at least 45min to 1 hour). We also take time to go out and about to stores, etc and learn what we can there. (I actually want to write another post about going out in public soon.)
• As the months go on, the boys are able to recognize more details and objects in our communications with them. Their recognition ability is growing by leaps and bounds when we refer to something or ask them to bring us something.
• The boys are great at letting me know when they need help or want something such as food, drink, help, bath, sleep, or to go outside. They always want to go outside... they come to me, sign for help, grab my hand and lead me to the area we keep our shoes. Outside they are very aware of everything and easily show signs of recognizing common things such as trees, flowers, rocks, birds, butterflies, shovel/rake/golf club (outdoor toys), cars, trucks, balls, water (they LOVE this) and swing. They are also very aware of our words we use ALL DAY LONG... safety and gentle. We use the word 'gentle' to describe how to pet animals, treat each other as well as how to play with rocks, etc (so they don't throw them at each other or through a window!). If I tell them they have to wait to go outside until I change their diapers or clothes, they run to get the diapers with smiles on their faces! If I say, no, not now... no smiles let me assure you... They also know what 'let's go inside' means and if I follow with 'to get something to drink (even though we have water with us outside...) they typically won't put up too much of a fight yet.
• The boys love animals and are becoming very aware of the different ones out there. They of course LOVE dogs and cats and say both very clearly. They also have become very interested in horses, cows, birds (generic, but ducks are their favorite!), sheep (Gavin loves to say baaabaaa), bears and monkeys.
• The boys are all into cars and trucks. They know what steering wheels are for too and love playing with them wherever they see them.
• They are great at communicating about eating and drinking and all that comes with it as I've mentioned before.
• Gavin and Wyatt have also become great at communicating when they are sleepy by signing to me. They also love when I say 'it's bath time' and they run to the bathroom signing 'bath'.
• Their favorite shapes they are learning to recognize are circles, squares and triangles; colors are yellow, blue, green and red. As I mentioned before, they love their shapes puzzle. Just this morning I asked Gavin to bring me a yellow block. He went over to the pile of blocks across the room, and grabbed me a blue block. I said. 'thank you for this blue block, can you find me a yellow one?' He looked at the block, looked at me, then the pile of blocks. He walked over to them and pulled out two yellow blocks to hand to me. Then went back and got a third yellow block! Now I'm not saying he 'knows' the color yellow, but based on this and previous activities, he sure is close!

There are LOTS more, but these are just a few I wanted to remember about them now.

Words and Sounds

• In addition to recognizing so many specific words these days, both boys are trying to sound them out too. Although they still have a long way to go in actually repeating the words, they spend a large portion of the day trying to sound out the words we are speaking to them. A lot of their words sound very similar to each other right now; an example is Gavin says, 'day-dee' for baby and 'day-do' for thank you.

• Sometimes when I have their complete attention like on the swings, we play 'phonics games' and such. Here is an example of one of our morning swinging games:

Mama: What sounds does the letter A make? a, a, a... Hum... what words begin with A? a...a...a... alligator, apple, ant, etc...

Boys; a...a...a... repeating the sound

Mama: continues on with other letters.

Mama: D! This is a special letter! Our favorite person on earth starts with the letter D! Let's see, D...D...D...

Wyatt then Gavin yell: DADDY!!!

Mama: That's right!! ... etc...

Mama: Goes through G for Gavin and W for Wyatt, etc...

Mama: Hum... How about the letter M? M says, mmmmm.

Both boys yell: Mama!! and Wyatt begins to make kissing noises (also sounds like M sounds).

So basically what I'm amazed at is their love for learning the sounds.

• Many letters are still just too hard to say, which is why a lot of their words all start with B, D, M, G and sometimes T.
• Here is their favorite book the past couple of weeks. They will bring it to me and open up the pages and we'll go through all the objects. As I say an object, they try so hard to sound it out. You can see and hear their little tongues moving in all sorts of ways!
• They are also learning to point to a few things I ask them to such as baby, dog, cat, ball, cow, tree, flowers, banana, etc.

• Just this afternoon, Gavin pointed to the ball in the air and said, 'ball'. Then he looked at the bottom right of the page and said, 'ball'. He had a finger on each ball and said, 'ball, ball'. How a 13 month old recognizes the two balls are the same is beyond me.

Body Awareness

• Right now the boys know where their (and other's) head, hands, feet, hinny (only used when I tell them to sit on their hinny), eyes, mouth, nose, and ears are at, and we're working on tummy. A word of advise, do not ask them where your nose is at; they love to pinch it! Better yet, don't ask Wyatt where it's at; just this past week he's started putting his finger in his nose when you ask him, and he tries with me too!
• They love the Baby Einstein DVD about body parts. The boys touch each part the DVD is talking about and come running to me to point out mine too. They love the 'heads, shoulders, knees and toes' song! They'll touch their head and then their toes and then run in place or in circles for fun!
• Wyatt has been blinking when we talk about eyes, and when we talk about our mouth for talking and eating, he starts bitting the air (how I taught them to 'chew' when they started eating solid foods). The boys still giggle when we talk about feet and Gavin says, 'ducaduca' for 'tickle tickle'.

'Potty Parts'

In addition to these body parts, the boys are also become very aware of their 'potty parts' too. They are very aware that this is where potty comes out of and it sounds like, 'psssss, pssss'. When they take a bath they often will point to it and say, 'psss, pssss' and of course when they sit on the toilet which they just love to do. Today during bath they were so excited about their 'potty parts' they stood up and pointed to the toilet to let me know they wanted to sit on it. I took two little wet boys and put one on the big potty with a snap on toilet seat (Cars which is super cool of course) and one on the stand alone potty right next to it. They were so happy and kept pointing saying, psssss. They typically do not actually go the bathroom when on the potty, but they do sometimes and get so excited.

Their awareness and enjoyment in learning all about it is wonderful and just what I've wanted to encourage. As soon as they start to become aware of themselves actually going potty, it will be time to full out train them. I just ordered a few 'potty' books to read to them just to further make them aware of this new big boy activity! It's been a fun process and nothing stressful. For a while I was taking both of them to the big boy potty when they'd wake up from a nap and after each meal. I quickly realized this was not necessary for Gavin and Wyatt specifically and decided to take a more relaxed approach until they begin to increase their awareness. I still take them on 'potty breaks' and we have fun learning all about sitting and why, but it's just not as often as 5+ times a day. I'll be honest too, taking two 13 month old boys (much younger when we started all this) is not super fun for Mama. I love teaching them and watching their excitement, but the whole process leaves me feeling like I was in a circus the whole time. Two bouncy boys and one very pregnant mama don't fit in a tiny space super comfy if you ask me! Of course, if they continue to develop in this area, I will begin to have more structure to potty time again. Time and Gavin and Wyatt will tell!