Acquisition

My mom is an elementary school teacher, and my dad is an education professor, so they've helped me notice nuances of Carson's language aquisition and how fascinating it really is. And also, sometimes it's just kind of funny. :)
For instance, yesterday we were playing in the living room with Cootie, a new birthday game from Henry. It is a great pre-school age game, and I'm really into my book, so I sat back and was going to let him play by himself--a constant and oft-unreached goal in this house. Of course, he was having nothing to do with that.

He said "You have to help me!"
"You can do it by yourself! It's fun!"

"No, you have to help me! It's the rules. See, it says right here on the box [he picks up the box and follows along some words with his finger, enunciating each word]: 'Mommies have to help boys play this game.'"

Ha! I had to laugh at that one. My mom would point out that he now associates letters and words with meaning. Also, he's learning what rules are and that we have to abide by them. Apparently, even the made-up rules.

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Also, a couple nights ago, long after Carson went to bed, I heard him calling me. When I went in, he was kind of groggy and asking for something. Usually I can understand him, but I could NOT figure out what he wanted. He kept saying something that sounded like "I wanna doe tracteh." Huh? Then the guessing game begins.

"You wanna go on a tracter?"

"NO!"

"You wanna gold cracker?"

"NO!"

"You wanna go somewhere?"

"NO! I don't wanna go. I want the doh tracted!"

"OK, I'm sorry, I can't understand you, honey. Can you tell me where that is? What is it you want? Is it in here?"

"NO! I want the doh tracted. Like right now. Over there."

Then he pointed to the DOOR, and I finally figured it out.

"OH! You want the DOOR CRACKED?!"

"Yeah. Leave the door crack-ted."

See, he's lately been over-pronouncing or experimenting words that have -ed on the end of them. For instance, "May I be excuse-zed?" Or "I beat-ed you!"

In this case, he wanted the door crack-ted.

My dad would point out that he's learning about the suffix and how we use it in the past tense. He just hasn't figured out all the irregular uses like ran, sat, beat, etc.

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On a totally unrelated note, here's some pics of Sydney with 2 of her great-grandmas.

This is Trent's grandma, Evelyn.

This is one of my grandmas, Ann.