Learning All The Time

You really never know how much your children are learning or observing until they prove to you that they WERE LISTENING. Even as young as 10 or 11 months old. Mackenzie has been talking for several months now, but the following proves amazing to me...even if other children her age are doing these things they still amaze me.

In the past few weeks Mackenzie has stepped up her vocabulary quite a bit. She does confuse a few things though. For example, she calls all birds "Duct" (translated duck). So she thinks all birds are ducks. We were standing in our back yard when a dove landed on the power lines. Mackenzie pointed at the bird and yelled "duct".

Not only has her simple one word vocabulary increased, but she is using sentences all the time. She says things like, "Let me do it", "You do it", "I want some", "Can I have it", etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

But the part that amazes me the most is her identification skills. She knows what things are. Case in point: Daddy was talking about cheese and how much Mackenzie likes cheese. Mistakenly he was holding her and she started saying, "Cheese, cheese. I want some. Cheese." Needless to say we had to get some cheese out and give it to her.

Just about a week ago I decided to see how much Mackenzie really is absorbing, so I took out four of her favorite books and randomly opened to a page. I pointed to a picture and asked her what it was. She answered correctly "Fish". The I kept turning pages and she would answer "Doggie" or "Duck" or "Shoe". And she was CORRECT on all occasions. OK, I understood that this could be possible because she had already been using these words for a few months. Then I started wondering what else can she identify. So I started asking her to show me items that I knew she was unable to enunciate. I would say, "Can you show me the balloon?", "How about the baby?", "Where is the flower." And again she correctly pointed out the pictures. Very cool to know that your 11 month old really does understand EVERYTHING. Of coarse, this means we must be careful what is on the television or what we are saying (we already are, but even more so).

I am sure every 10 and 11 month old is doing the same thing (even if they don't say it out loud they are saying it in their mind; you know, the strong silent types), but it still blows me away.

Now I suppose we just need to get her walking...although I am not in a hurry for her first steps. :) But her friend Sawyer did take his first steps yesterday, and he is only 9 months old. Now that really is AMAZING.