i-Talk! i-Talk!

Adik is making steady progress with his verbal communication, while his non-verbal communication continues to improve.

As I mentioned in the previous blog, Adik has been calling Daddy, “Dah!” which is as close as he can get at this stage and we’re not complaining! The pitch of his voice is permanently set at the “Cute” level of shrillness. When he repeats it while running to his Daddy with his arms outstretched, it’s pretty clear what “Dah!” means.

Having said that, he does have another association for “dah”. Whenever he hears the distinct honk of Uncle Roti’s motorbike, he stops what he’s doing, climbs up the chair nearest to him, points outside and shouts, “DAH! DAH!” He has obviously noticed that the adults around him yell, “ROTI!” whenever we need to buy bread from Uncle Roti. I realise that “Dah” doesn’t sound anything like “roti”, but it’s quite clear what he’s referring to.

Similarly, when the gas man drives through the neighbourhood, the unique honk blaring away makes Adik poke his head up much like a prairie dog, barking, “Ga! Ga!” Of course I pile on the praise!

“Why, that’s right, Adik! It is the lori gas, isn’t it?” I tell him.

“GA! GA!” he repeats, which I usually interpret as, “Well, aren’t you going to run out like a mad fool and wave wildly at him while yelling at the top of your lungs?”

“Actually, no sweetie, we just bought a new tong gas last week. But thank you for the reminder.” Such a sweet boy.

The other thing he says on a fairly regular basis is “Nenek” (well, not clearly and precisely, but as close to it as he’ll get for now). Have I mentioned that Nenek has been his Flavour of the Month recently? Come to think of it, it’s more like Flavour of the Quarter because she’s been his Flavour for about 3 months or so now. Whenever we go to their house, he’s inseparable from her. It didn’t take me long to realise why: It’s because she carries him around everywhere, even for his lunch!

Anyway, whenever we’re on the way to her house we tell him, “We’re going to Nenek’s house now, Adik. We should be there soon.”

Then he does his prairie dog imitation from his car seat and says, “Neh-neh. Neh-neh?”

“Yes, Nenek’s house. We’re going to see Nenek!” His enthusiasm is infectious.

And once, he actually repeated, “Neh-neh, Neh-neh, Neh-neh” all the way to her house.

Needless to say, Nenek was very pleased when I told her about that!