Xander's first word was kitty, but he doesn't actually say "kitty". First he said, "ti ti" for kitty, and then Mama would say, "Yeah! Kitty, that's right!" So since she always answered Xander saying "ti ti" with "yeah..." Xander changed it to "ti ti ya" and then "ti ta" and now he's gone back to "ti ti". Any way he says it is pretty dang cute.
Xander also really likes to pet the kitties. He's gotten much better at petting them nicely instead of sorta smacking them around. He also really enjoys a good hug, and kitties are no exception. If he's lucky enough to get close to one, he gives them a big hug. After many hugs, he realized that when he listens to the kitty with his head on their chest, he can hear them purr. So, eventually he started saying, "ti ti... hsssss sssss sssss", sorta like this!
The kid is just so dang cute!
After kitty, Xander started to work on Dada and Dad. Dada he has down, but Dad sounds more like "daT" with a hard T sound at the end. He also noticed that his Dada chews a lot of gum, and chewing gum makes a noise, so he started to make that noise around his Dada, and now that is part of their ritual when Dada comes home from work. Dada walks in from the garage making the gum smacking sound and Xander starts to do it right back. Very sweet.
We think, after Dada, Mama was probably Xander's next word. But somewhere in all of that he started to want to communicate about food. It was (and still is) difficult to know when Xander is hungry and what he would like to eat. So once Mama and Dada started trying new foods with him, Xander sorta made up his own language. When he had something he didn't like, he would either not make any noise or spit it out, make a face, gag, shake his head or something to sorta let you know. But if he DID like something, he'd finish it and say, "HA!" So that's how Mama sorta figured out his likes and dislikes over time. Mama would offer him more and say "more" too, so eventually Xander would say "ha" or "mam" which was his way of saying "more".
Later, after we had the "ha" and "mam" system down (most people mistake "mam" for "mom" but it is definitely food related because no one really calls Mama "mom" in front of Xander) he discovered his love for beans. Whenever Mama would offer him black beans, Xander would make a hard G sound with his mouth closed. Almost like he was saying beans without moving his lips. So Mama thought that was his way of indicating that he wanted beans. But then he started making the hard G sound for other things - and that's when it clicked. "G" didn't mean "beans" it meant "yes". At least where food was concerned. We'd start to offer him choices at meal time and he would stay silent until you listed a food he wanted, he'd make the "G" sound and that's how you knew what he was willing to eat that time around. It was a major breakthrough. It wasn't long after that when Xander started saying "moo" when he wanted milk - we'd always offered him milk by asking if he wanted "mmmmmmmilk" so he translated that long m sound into "moo". Unfortunately, he doesn't say that one that much anymore, but it was cute while it lasted.
Xander has a giraffe that plays sounds and helps him fall asleep - he loves that thing. He carries his giraffe around, hugging it, changing the sounds it plays, and chewing on its face. We've called the giraffe either "giraffe" or "raffie" when offering it to Xander, searching for it around the house, etc. Xander picked up on "raffie" and started calling him "ra ra". It's pretty freakin' cute.
Xander also sounds things out. Since Xander was maybe 3 months old (maybe younger) Mama and Dada have read him books each night before bedtime. At the end of each book we say "the end" in a certain sing-songy sort of way each time. Somewhere along the way, Xander picked up on this and at the end of books he hums "the end" the way we say/sing it.
He's picked up on a lot of things and has some other sounds and noises he makes consistently too. It's funny because Mama can remember asking her Mom at a young age what her first word was and what her next word was, and so on... but her Mom couldn't really remember. She said she had made a list somewhere and would try to find it, but how could Mom not remember!? Now Mama gets it - things happen so fast and if you don't write everything down the moment you realize it happened, before you know it you can't remember when things happened, where, and so on. So, thank you, blogosphere, for keeping some of that stuff maintained for us while the rest, sadly, remains a mystery in our minds!
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