Here's one of the most recent additions to my VFP list. At 18 months, my nephew is quite interactive now. He's constantly on the move. He's happy almost all the time. You watch him and you can't help but smile or laugh.He is communicating well and likes to talk. Constrained in his highchair at the restaurant where this photo was taken, he would look at one of us and say, "Walk?" When he was met with something like, "We'll walk after we eat," he would just pick another person and ask, "Walk?"
Anything round--like ornaments hanging from the ceiling--is a ball. He can tell you the sound just about any animal makes. So far I have heard him imitate a dog, sheep, horse, pig and cow. It's a little much to ask him how a rooster sounds, though. That's because right now his verbal communication is only perfect if he's speaking a one-syllable word.
If a word has more than one syllable, he takes the liberty of shortening it. He loves to eat hummus, or "hum." He correctly referred to "Joe" in a recent visit since Joe's name is the right length. Others of us, like Teri, are reduced to the first syllable: he just calls her "Teh." He knows who I am but for some reason my monosyllabic name isn't "Nat," it's "Nay." Maybe he thinks I look or sound like a horse . . .
