Listening & Talking

These days I am talking a dime to a dozen though most time people don't understand me. However, Mami does a fair job of 'interpreting' what i say. In fact, I am getting better at imitating sounds and words. But it also depends on my concentration level. I must say, my best time is in the early morning while in bed cuddling with Mami. I especially love songs and Mami is always surprised at how fast i picked up words from songs.

At 14 month and 17 days, this is what i can do so far:

Receptive skills -
1) Identifying familiar people by pointing to them: All the family members including QQs and Laolao's helpers
2) Identifying common objects by pointing at the real objects: e.g. My toys (including my tutu), familiar fruits/food (biscuit, apple, water etc), household objects (including flower & dog)
3) Identifying common objects/animals/fruits by pointing to pictures (e.g. strawberry, ladybird, flower, apple, ball, etc)
4) Identifying nursery songs by doing parts of the corresponding action (e.g. signing 'twinkle' , 'diamond', 'gongxi gongxi')

Expressive skills -

Here's the list of words and parts of songs that i can say/sing -
* Mama/Papa/Laolao (rao rao)/ kaka (what she calls the helpers)
* MumMum (for eating)
* Hello (ah-roll)
* Byebye (ba-bye + wave hands)
* Bubble (bah-ber)
* Ball (bah)
* Star ('tar) - Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
* Up (up + pointing up)
* Biscuit (b-skiat, kiat)
* Cake (kay)
* Flower (far-were)
* 抱抱
* 鞋子 (cheh-si)
* 猫 (mao, meow)
* 拔萝卜（ba-bo) - 拔萝卜
* sprout (spout) - Insy Winsy Spider
* More (orh + sign)
* Tutu (titi + sign)
* No (now + shakes head)
* Apple (ah-per, per)
* Duck (duc)
* Bird (ber)

I can be quite insistent on people looking at me when i talk to them (esp when Mami wants to sleep, i actually have to move her face and tap her eyes so that she wakes up!). Persistence also plays a part when i insist that people carry me. I will say "抱抱" until they do, if that's not clear enough i will say "抱抱 up" too! Of course, with all these 'talking', i am also enjoying singing... from just "lalala" to now some words. I love completing the songs whenever Mami sings to me my favourite ones. Mami also asked Dadi to use the same way to teach me to sing some Mandarin songs too.

Anyway, it gets less frustrating now that people can understand me abit better, especially when i am asking them for somethings. Pointing just doesn't work with some people you know? Well, if all else fails, i guess i can always fall back to screaming. THAT definitely gets their attention. Hahaha!