In other words

In addition to meeting all of the other benchmarks for 18 month old behavior, Zeke seems to be picking up new vocabulary and word usages everyday. Really, who knew there were so many uses for "no"? Furthermore, Zeke seems to have as many ways to say "no" as Eskimos have to say "snow."

Here is one novel word use. Ask Zeke to say "grandma" and he says "mama". Zeke, this book is from Grandma. MAMA! Zeke, do you want to talk to Grandma? MAMA! Do you love Grandma, Zeke? MAMA! I'd feel bad about it, but I am probably better off than Aaron. Zeke is more likely calling the dog than he is his daddy when he shouts, "DA!" ("Da" is our dog and "dada" indicates the Sprout Daddy.)

Zeke is using a lot of new sounds and does a lot more repeating our words. We hear sounds from him all the time now that sound like words, though we haven't yet determined if he is saying them with any particular meaning. For example, it has sounded like he has said "up" and today a more proper "grandma".

Some new words: "knock knock" "ball" "quack quack" "hello" "cracker".

Some new signs: car, butterfly, outside, read, book, time, bear, fish, chair, bike, some signs that I don't know what they mean. Also he has gotten pretty sharp on signing "please" and "thank you." It often takes prompting ("What do you say, Zeke?"), but he will often just automatically sign "thank you" when he gets something! Charming and almost negating of all the shrieking.