Talking Twos

I never liked the "terrible twos" label. It just seems so unfair for little people trying so hard to figure how the world works. I think a much better name would be "talking twos" that captures the constant amazement, and, yes, occasional frustration, by all involved parties much better :). Leon has always been a "watcher," taking his time before he plunges into something and talking has been just one of those areas. I had written before about how he made do with just a few words in expressing all his needs for the longest time and felt no pressure to branch out. Until, all of a sudden, he decided he was ready, and now he is trying to tell us something all the time, repeating everything he hears very competently. This has become Dari's favorite game, getting Leon to repeat things (including some that he should not ;). So here's the top-hits list (or what I could remember).

Leon is getting better at it now but "s" has not been an easy letter for him and so he would say "moof" instead of moose or "fnow" instead of snow.

Fortunately we are well into spring blooms and snow is a distant memory but I have a video from about that time (when Dari was at Disney), where I captured Leon's deliberately reluctant answer to "are you happy?" which has ALWAYS been a half-teasing "noooo..." :)

https://youtu.be/jeZpC9mvSMc

He, STILL, refuses to say his own name on most occasions, even though he knows how (Ooonik :)), and will instead substitute "baby." I suspect some of this may be caused by how different his name sounds in English (Leon) and Slovak (Onik - which is short for Leonik), so he found a middle ground. This is how a typical exchange goes, between Dari asking him to say something and then Leon "repeating" it back:

D: Dari plays soccer.
L: Socca, Daaa! (update: as of this week, he started calling Dari "Dayi" :)
D: Leon plays soccer
L: Socca, Baby!

Leon celebrated "cosmonauts' day" (it's a thing, look it up!) by singing a song unprompted and all by himself, when he graced us with a(n abbreviated) rendition of the "Wheels on the bus" - he was very pleased when I recognized the "bus bus, and round, all town" as the song it was supposed to be :))

He is also learning A LOT of phrases in their proper grammatical form etc. from Dari, which makes his acquisition of Slovak a little less one-sourced (compared to Dari's, who mostly got it from me). Leon now knows all his different conjugations / language versions of the relevant verbs for wanting me to come/go wherever he needs me (coming, come, idem, ides, chod!, go away...) and when he wakes up, he does not just call my name or cry but he asks if "I'm coming!" (Mami, ides??) - this video shows the urgency with which he usually says it.

https://youtu.be/NJEOskq1bH0

Finally, Leon seems to be learning his colors (he has been, correctly, pointing out everything pink) but I am not sure he quite gets the full concept because whenever I offer him something and it is not the specimen he wanted, he'll say he wants "the blue one," meaning the "other one." This is him and some pink magnolias near our house.