Moses' vocabularly has really taken off in the past couple months. Just this evening, for example, he asked for more of his favorite vegetable at dinner, clearly saying, "broccoli? broccoli?" Then after dinner, during our evening swim, Moses clearly requested to wear "goggle". This afternoon when I told him it was time to go pick up his brothers from preschool, he happily exclaimed, "Jooooshua! Joooooshua!" He hasn't mastered "Caleb" yet, however, and I'm not sure if it's because Caleb is a more difficult word or because Moses simply favors Joshua.
That reminds me of something funny that happened a couple months ago, when Moses was about 14 months old. We had just arrived at Safeway and put Moses in one of those carts that has a "cozy coupe" car attached to the front. Moses was happy as a clam until Caleb claimed his coveted passenger seat, relegating Joshua to drive solo in another car, a move which prompted Moses to start crying hysterically. In an effort to keep a low profile (which, we realize, is basically impossible when you take three little boys at the grocery store at 9 pm), we moved Moses to Joshua's car, and he immediately stopped crying. Upon suffering rejection by his baby brother, Caleb launched a crying fit of his own. While I of course felt sorry for Caleb (he's a very loving big brother who just happens to have unusually stiff competition from an equally loving yet perhaps slightly more fun and engaging Joshua), I couldn't help but marvel at Moses' ability to tell his twin brothers apart, a skill which most adults have yet to master.
In addition to broccoli, another one of Moses' favorite foods is Cheerios. The other night Joe and the boys were dancing to Old School Sesame street songs and Moses fell asleep in his arms while listening to "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon". While cradling a sleeping Moses in his arms, Joe asked the twins if they wanted to eat some Cheerios before bedtime. As soon as Joe said "Cheerios", Moses' eyelids popped open and he perked up and said, "Cheerio? Cheerio?" quickly regaining alertness just in time to join his brothers in partaking of their favorite evening snack.
Moses wants to do everything that his brothers do. When we're outside swimming in the pool we let the boys pee in the shrubs so that we don't have to take them into the house every ten minutes. (I don't know if the boys are hydrating themselves through osmosis while they're swimming or if they're drinking the pool water, but for some reason they need to pee three times more often than usual while they're swimming). Moses has observed the twins' outdoor potty ritual often enough that he now tries to copy them. He'll say "potty! potty!" then walk over to the grass and assume the same posture that the boys assume when they relieve themselves, with an arched back and stuck-out tummy.
Moses is enthralled by "Elmo", which in his mind is an all-encompassing term that refers to any googly-eyed Sesame Street character. For example, last weekend he was beside himself with glee when we allowed him to bring home a new "Elmo" aka Cookie Monster plush toy from our friends' yard sale. Moses has never even seen a modern Sesame Street episode featuring Elmo (we don't have cable and only occasionally watch 1970's pre-Elmo Sesame Street episodes on DVD), but he has somehow become obsessed nevertheless.
Moses has started trying to count. He especially loves counting to 3 (he usually skips 1 and 2 and just says "three" three times), especially if such counting is followed by jumping in the pool or being tossed up into the air, or if he is looking at pictures of himself, Caleb, and Joshua, he'll want to count the three brothers. When we drive by Mount Vernon on our way to church on Sunday mornings, the twins like to count the dozens of tourist buses that are parked along the road (interestingly, Chris and I used to do the exact same thing every Sunday on our way to church when we were little... not much has changed over the years!). Moses tries to count along with them, although he usually gets lost after "three". Moses also tries to sing the ABC's. He has the melody down pretty well but the letters are still a bit muddled.
Overall, I'm very impressed with Moses' ability to communicate. One of our friends recently gave us a very thoughtful gift of a baby signing DVD, and while baby sign language is something which probably would have benefitted our tongue-tied twins when they were Moses' age, we honestly don't see the need to teach Moses how to sign because he already speaks and understands language so well. Indeed, in retrospect there are many things I would change about how we raised the twins during their formative first two years. For one thing, I would have forced myself to talk to them more, since I suspect that my own reticence is at least partially to blame for their recently diagnosed language delays. But looking back, we were still in survival mode well into the twins' second year, and were probably still too precoccupied with trying to get enough sleep and preserve our sanity to explore alternative communication options. What can I say, you live and learn!
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