Watching Ash’s language development is utterly fascinating. He tries to repeat a couple dozen of my words every day, and usually picks up one or two words to bring into his regular vocabulary every day. Most recently I taught him how to say “boobie,” something I’ll likely regret when he can really pronounce it and does so in public. Right now if he sees my boob while I’m getting changed or getting ready to nurse, he says “booobbiee” with a smirk on his face. It’s absolutely adorable. Today when the doorbell rang he said, “Abba abba abba” (for Ambera), which is something we’ve been trying to get him to say for months. He finally picked it up for the first time.
At 15 months, Ash has about 35 words, 15 noises (animal sounds, etc) and about 12 signs- I need to learn more in order to teach him more. His favorite word to say this week is “hanger” something I didn’t try to teach him at all, but they’ve always been a favorite “toy” while I put away clothes, and it just popped out of his mouth and now he runs around the house saying, “hanger hanger hanger hanger hanger.” Often with a hanger in his hand. The other morning he woke up and his first word was hanger. Hahaha!
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Do you ever read a tragic story and then can’t stop thinking about it? A few years ago when James Kim and his family got lost I thought about them for months. I still think about him for some reason.
A couple of weeks ago a 27 year old girl was crossing the street on a crosswalk and was hit by a dump truck who was turning right and was killed. It happened in downtown Halifax, right in front of a Tim Horton’s at 10:30am. Supposedly there was screaming. The driver got out of the truck and looked under and saw her and put his hands up over his eyes and probably was one of the people who screamed, I don’t know, but I can’t stop thinking about the scenario. It came out that she started crossing the street on the flashing hand, which means that the truck driver won’t be charged. I think about her trying to cross the street quickly before it changes. I think about the driver who says that the sun was in his eyes was just driving and not thinking twice about anything and then suddenly her life was over and his was changed forever. I think about those moments of him getting out of the truck and looking under and hoping that he would see nothing, but instead seeing something terribly gruesome. There are flowers on a post on the corner where she was hit and it’s one thing to see those little markings when you’re whizzing by on the highway, but to have it right in the middle of downtown is so disturbing. I hope I stop thinking about it soon.
I scan crosswalks more than ever when I’m driving, and make sure to double-check when crossing them on mine and Ash’s daily walks. One of my biggest nightmares, next to getting stuck in a small tunnel, is hitting someone with my car.
