Ouch!

My mom says occasionally that Misha reminds her of E.T. He has a little scrawny neck with creases of skin like the picture. This week, he also figured out a word we have been working on forever. I am not sure if it was a motor skills thing or he never made the connection, but he is finally signing "ouch". And, he seems to have made the connection with things that hurt. For instance, when I was getting him into his car seat this morning, I must have sat him wrong or something cause he started to "pain" whine and when I asked him what was wrong, he showed me "ouch". When he went for a walk with Ira the other day, he kept wanting to go into the street, but she would stop him and tell him that there were cars that drove on the street. Ira has explained this before and also that he could get hurt. So she was surprised and pleased when he signed "ouch".

I am excited for Misha to get the next two Signing Time DVDs next week. He has been watching and enjoying thoroughly enjoying 1 & 2. I think he is in a state of mind to pick up some new ones.

Ira made me take her up to the Living Traditions festival in SLC. Basically it consists of me loading the puppet theater into the van, driving her up, setting up the theater, doing puppet shows with her for 3 hours for a bunch of rowdy school kids

Misha vs. Demothenes

Misha has been having an interesting week. Some switch has been thrown and he is more willing to try new words. He still just laughs at us most of the time, but he picked up a couple of old words and a new one.

He has also been very attentive to usage of words we are using in sentences. If we mention the word "dog" even when we are talking with each other an not him, he will say "av-av". Or when we say "car" he will do a raspberry. The other day we said "liniya" (russian for "line") and he started repeating (not unlike E.T. in the movie) "anya! anya! anya!". Then, the other day we were at mom's, I think and were talking when he started to say "aabee" for cousin Kobe. He was so excited that he kept repeating it. He also decided to remember that he used to say "Elmo" and "Alanna" -- "am-ma" and "a-ana".

I have such hopes that he will learn to talk and be able to communicate better with us. He is learning signs and makes some up, so we get the idea of what he wants or at least a good idea, but it would be cool if he could do much more. At this rate he might. Maybe I should try the pebbles in his mouth....well, no, he would just swallow them.