Who Needs Words?

I've mentioned before that Liam and Dash don't talk much. Really, the only things they say where they absolutely know the meaning is Dada and Mumum. They used to say Dog from sunup to sundown and an occasional Hi but those have gone by the wayside.

But they understand a whole hecka lot. They know to put the Legos back in the bin when I ask them to. They seek out and find a slew of animals on a page. They can pick out several shapes. They have all sorts of specific grunts to identify Important Things (cars, Elmo, Winnie the Pooh, the favorite animal of the day, the sun, the moon, etc.). In fact, if they point to something and I identify it wrong, they give me this look and their grunts become incredibly urgent until I say the correct name. They can name lots of things by sign language- favorites being Shoes, Airplane, Fish, Bird, and Butterfly.

Sean's parents told me that when Sean was at the boys' age, he was the very same: no talking but understood a ton. Then when he finally did talk it was practically in sentences (the boy does like to impress). Seeing as Sean is perhaps the most intelligent person I know, I'm not really worried. Liam and Dash and I communicate just fine and talking will come. Though I am pretty excited to hear their sweet little voices.

It really amazes me to think of how far they've come. Just a moment ago, it seems, they were utterly helpless creatures completely dependent upon their parents. How in the world have they learned so much?!

They have a few puzzles that they are mastering. It's watching them do these puzzles that impresses me the most. Here's Liam doing the shapes and colors puzzle:

(butterfly puzzle from Katie Bradley on Vimeo.)

Dash was helping me take the video. Hence the "dramatic" ending. Dash is just as awesome at the puzzle. Did you notice how Liam flipped over the square piece to make it right-side-up?

When they do their alphabet puzzle, I'm constantly surprised at how much they understand:

(alphabet puzzle from Katie Bradley on Vimeo.)

I think that's pretty good matching! Though that X is tricky- it has the same character on top as the K piece and they're both a shade of blue. And how similar are X and K, anyway? Very tricky. Did you notice how Liam pointed out the O without even seeing the piece? And I had barely handed Dash his new piece before he smashed it into the Q spot. I love my smart boys. They understand it all.