Talk that talk

Leo has been talking up a storm.  Little sentences and phrases.  He mimics almost everything we say, and rarely mimics something that he doesn't seem to understand.  Sometimes he completely floors us with what comes out of his mouth.  Today, for instance, we bought him a life jacket for swimming so that we can relax a bit when we take him down to the water to splash in the BIG waves.  He was enthralled with it, and talked about his "Wy-Dacket" all night, and sobbed with heartbreak when we took it off at bathtime.

Here are some of my favorite recent stunners.

brand recognition

• Sometimes, when we are out and about running errands, we will make a Starbucks stop for a little corporate coffee fix (and they have those little Horizon milks he likes and little healthy-ish snack boxes).  I guess this has made an impression, as we were grocery shopping the other day and he pulled a box of single-serve Keurig-style Starbucks pouches off of the shelf - something I don't buy - pointed to the Starbucks logo and said: "Mama coffee!" with great pride.
• We frequent the grocery stores near our house, one of which is Whole Foods.  He recently pointed to the WF logo on a bottle of water and announced, "Hofoo."  
• He pointed to the "Kirkland" logo on something random - garbage bags, maybe - from Costco and proclaimed, "Apple cookies."  (His favorite snack is a bag of these freeze-dried apples we buy in bulk.)

our place in Leo's world

• Papa day - any time Matt is off and spending time with us is proclaimed a "Papa day."
• Papa juice - any time we see orange juice
• Byebye George - when our neighbor George drives off
• Byebye Jackie - any time a stranger starts a vehicle and drives off in Leo's presence as we are passing, Leo remembers that his beloved babysitter Jackie recently did the same when she left after spending the afternoon with him
• Ahhhhco Wy - still with the Uncle Ryan madness.  Several times a day, Leo seems to see something or someone who reminds him of his beloved uncle.

letters and numbers

• You are going to think that I am insane, or lying, but Leo knows all of the numbers, 0-9, and all of the letters in the alphabet...and has since about 18 months.  Right after his first birthday, we noticed that he had developed a very fanatical interest in letters and numbers and he still talks about letters and numbers ALLDAYLONGGGGG.  I don't know if he knows all of the lowercase letters yet, but he knows many of them, and often points to a letter and says, for example, "Big A!" or "Little E!"
• Whenever Leo sees a writing utensil, he begs us to draw a K.  Always a K.  "Draw K!" 

comedian Leo

• Leo often does/says things intentionally to be funny or get a laugh - like fake sneezing or, my favorite - when asked to spell his name, he will say, "L-E-Mama!" or "L-E-Papa!"  One time he said "L-E-Nana."  We don't know why, but he seems to get a kick out of it.  We often say, "L-E-O spells 'Leo!'" and I guess he just thought it would be funny to not give us what we want or something.  Sometimes he'll give this same answer when we ask him what his name is.  I've heard him say his own name ("Wee-o") exactly twice (and both were in the past two weeks).

polite Leo

• More juice, please
• Thank you Papa (often unprompted, always with the sign and sooooo cute)
• Please (also often with sign, and sounds like Peeeeeeez which makes me die at the cuteness)
• Pretty Mama
• Love you, Papa
• Sorry, Papa (when prompted to apologize after swiping)
• Ducky, ok? (after viciously throwing Ducky across the room - showing GREAT concern)

oopsie

• Oh sit!