A couple weeks ago I almost received the Aunt-of-the-Year Award. I flew home to watch my two year old nephew and one year old niece for five days while the parents vacationed. I say I almost got the award because I didn't really do it by myself (thank God my mom was still off work from surgery and helped the whole time) and because I felt out of control almost the whole time.
It was mostly fun with a few tantrums, squirmy diaper changes, dinner time crying, midnight toddler wake-ups, and one instance of someone drinking too much bath water. We went to the zoo (complete with a monkey eating poop!), made peanut butter play-dough, baked cookies, went on walks, read a lot of books, watched the Cubbies, listened to music, drew a lot of vehicles and then lined up a lot of vehicles OVER and OVER.
The best part about the trip for me was paying attention to my nephew's language development. As someone who has worked with numerous kids with autism and kids with other developmental delays and someone who has taken language development courses, I found it fascinating to talk to Boston.
At two-and-a-half his language is exploding. He repeats (and uses appropriately) words and phrases after hearing them just once. He finds ways to get you to label things he doesn't know. We were coming back from a walk and we were going to run to the stop sign. He got in the stroller at the corner and I said something like, "We made it. There's the stop sign." He repeats, "Stop sign" and then points to the street signs right next to us and says, "Looka that." I said, "Oh yeah, that's a street sign." He repeats me and I say, "It's a green street sign." So for the rest of the walk home he was on the lookout for "green street signs" and found them all.
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| Running to the stop sign |
Another day, he was trying to kill a fly on the patio doors with a fly swatter (a favorite activity). He almost killed the fly as it was laying on the floor but then it got away. He said something to me I didn't understand. I thought it was "flying". He said no and repeated his word. I still didn't get it and he knew I was clueless. After like four tries, he finally said, "Wike this...waaah" and pretended to cry. So I said, "Oh crying?" He said, "Yes." He was trying to tell me the fly was crying when he hit it so hard. How awesome and smart is he for trying so many times and then thinking to act out the word I wasn't getting!? I was impressed!
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| Smarty Pants! |
The other cool language thing he did was when we again were on a walk and he was asking me for water. I didn't know what he was asking about, even when he was looking in the basket under the stroller. Finally he walked away and said, "No, milk." I was like, "Oh, you want water?" and he said, "Yes." Way to make an association buddy!
Here are some of my favorite Boston-isms:
- "What you do-ning?" (what are you doing?)
- He says "honey bunny" when talking about honey
- He calls his pirate ship a "space ship"
- He says, "oooh my God" at appropriate times (we're trying to get that to "oh my gosh", or "oh my")
- I would call to my mom, "Look mom" and Boston would proceed to call to her "Mom, look mom" instead of calling her grandma.
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| Lovey when they wake up |
When I was back home, I told two women with young kids about this trip. One was like, "Well do they go to daycare?" I said yes and she goes, "So you took them to daycare..." I stopped her and said I watched them all day for the five days and she was like, "Oh my! I sometimes tell this to people and I'm serious: I'm afraid to be alone with my own children!" My sister then informed me AFTER THE FACT that neither her nor her husband have been on their own with the kids for more than one night. Maybe I am Aunt of the Year.
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| Best kids an aunt could ask for! |
