Communicating

Stian has started to be more interactive and is even starting to communicate with us in more ways than just smiling or crying. And he appears to understand a fair amount of what we are saying to him.

For awhile now if you blow raspberries at him he’ll blow them back at you. He and Kris can have quite the conversation in raspberries. I don’t know what the name is for the other thing he does – but it’s where you run your fingers back and forth over your lips while sort of humming. He’ll do that back at you if you do it to him. Stian also waves regularly when someone waves to him.

He’s also starting to say words though. He has said “Daddy” and “Mama” for awhile, but he said them indiscriminately. But he appears to be saying them discriminately now. He says “Daddy” much more than he says “Mama”, but he does say both.

When we were at Kris’s parents’ house Stian slept in his pack n’ play in the room I was sleeping in. Kris always gets Stian up in the morning. So one of the mornings he woke up a little earlier than normal, and was waiting for Kris to come and get him and he started babbling. But then he very clearly said “Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy…. Mama? Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy…. Daddy? Mama?” I just laid there listening to him chuckling.

When we were leaving daycare today Miss Jessica waved to him and said “bye-bye”. And Stian waved back and said “bye-bye”! We were all kind of shocked. We’ll see if he does it again or if it was just a fluke.

Jessica, one of his teachers at daycare, has also told me a couple of times that she thought he was signing “more” to her when she was feeding him lunch. She’s been working on it with him. I was kind of skeptical. But today when I picked Stian up at daycare Jessica showed me. She said to him “show Mama more” and Stian brought his hands together similar to the sign for “more.”

And finally, Stian seems to have pretty good comprehension in both English and Norwegian. He knows the names for some of his toys and will pick them out of a pile of toys when asked to do so in either English or Norwegian.

It’s so fun to see those wheels turning in his brain and to have him be more interactive.