Misha's first word

Misha has a vocabulary of a dozen words or so. Most of them are animal sounds, like "a-khiii" for cat (it sounds like the russian word for cat..."KI-sa". Or dog..."av av", or goose..."ga-ga-ga". His best word is "up!", which he pronounces quite crisp. And there is mama, baba, papa and a couple others.

Misha also signs several words. More, again, milk, eat, drink, sleep, yes, no, etc. One day, while putting him to bed, I noticed that he was showing me a new sign which I had never seen before. I have watched his Signing Time videos several times and couldn't remember that one anywhere. But it was so appropriate and understandable, it was easy to figure out. He put one finger in his mouth and moved it back and forth..."brush my teeth". Amazing...he can't speak it, but he is smart enough to make up his own sign that makes a lot of sense.

Misha has also started comforting people when they are "hurt". For instance, when he gets frustrated, he will sometimes hit myself or Ira, but whenever he does we tell him that it hurts, which instantly turns off the frustration and he has started giving hugs. Or when one of the other kids hurts themselves or is crying, he does the same thing.

Another major progression was that the other day, I noticed him while he was playing using a toy in an appropriate role. He was crawling along on the floor and found a small matchbox size car. He did his car noise (kind of like a raspberry with his lips), then flipped it over onto its wheels and moved it back and forth. This is great progress. He is picking stuff up really fast right now. It's exciting.