Hide & Seek

Old & Busted: Mommy or daddy hides, baby seeks.
New Hotness: Baby hides items from himself and has full conversations while looking for them.

Example: Alastair recently discovered that his bath spout-protector (a duck with an openable fireman's helmet) is a perfect hiding spot for his little PlayMobil 1-2-3 girl. Last night he put the little girl in the helmet and said, "Where'd the little girl go?" It's worth noting that he shrugged, too.

Then he proceeded to lift each item in the bathtub, searching underneath them for the missing girl. "Is she under the duck? No.... Is she under cock-dile? No... Is she under washcloth? No..."

Seriously. He enunciated everything clearly. He knew exactly where she was, but now he's moved into practicing the word-game.

This morning he repeated the ritual with his Curious George sticker-sheet.

He's also been working on enunciating words like "yes" (which had been "yeah") and "excavator" (which had been "ekhvay"), and late last week, when Vivienne was climbing into a bag she didn't belong in, Alastair walked over to her, put his hand in front of her and said, "No maam! Get down."

On Sunday night, we drove around looking at Christmas lights and listening to Chris Isaak's Christmas CD. There's one song where he repeats "Merry Christmas from one million miles away" several times. At the end of the song, Alastair looked at me and said "Merry Christmas." He'd only heard it in the song, but now we have him using it as a greeting, complete with "Merry Christmas to you" as a reply.

Kid's got some vocabulary skills. Rock on!