It was weird when Robin started answering questions, months ago. (‘Do you want a sandwich or an apple?’ ‘sandwich’.)
It’s even weirder to have multiple-exchange conversations with him. ‘Where are you going?’ <he points across the park> ‘Nah, you should stay over here with me.’ <he changes direction and comes back to me>.
He’s kind of on a talking strike with me (including signs) at the moment, although he seems willing to talk to Raymond when Kevin and I aren’t around. I… can’t really blame him, because I so often forget to verbalize to him that when I do suddenly start demanding verbal interaction, it must seem incredibly arbitrary.
It’s not that I don’t talk to him. I do! Quite a bit! But I’m bad at the parental narration most guides recommend. And, okay, this sounds silly but I often don’t realize I’m not verbalizing at him because it feels like we have communication deeper than words. So I have the sense of communicating without actual vocalization. Like, you know, blogging or something.
I did make an effort to explain to him about colors today. And when he was pointing at something in a book, I explained that talking was useful because the stuff he pointed had a color and a shape and a name of its own and I couldn’t know what he was ‘saying’ unless he used words.
He’s started climbing on the miniature table in his room to reach the light switch. And falling off of it when it tips over. He did it today while we were playing and I observed as spotter for a while before moving the table to a new location. He fell once and had to take a break from standing on his tip-toes twice from muscle exhaustion. And when he fell, he scrambled right back up again.
Oh! And he’s added a new trick to his efforts to avoid walking– sometimes when he crawls, he uses his feet instead of his knees. Or one knee and one foot. I think he’s trying to work out how to stand up without pulling up on something.