Bree’s Vocabulary Explosion

Bree is talking more than ever. She talks to her parents and I all the time and when she is playing with her toys, she talks to them as well. I have been talking to her since day one. Everything we did together, I always talked her through the process, even when she was too young to understand all of the words that came out of my mouth. She loves my company and will sometimes drag her chair to the breakfast bar to join me when I cook at the kitchen. I tell her what I am doing and what I am making for dinner/lunch. It’s easy to assume that this lonely single child is just seeking human contact but you won’t believe how much she is learning through all these mini conversation sessions. Recently, I made her a vegetable omelette for lunch. As I was beating the eggs, Bree hopped down from her chair and begged me to open the kitchen utensil drawer. That drawer still has a safety latch to prevent Bree from playing with sharp objects. I asked her what she wanted and she pointed at the egg beater and said, “Here @#^*-@#^*, use an egg beater.” LOL

On some mornings, I arrive to find Bree under the care of her dad because her mum has gone to the market. She usually comes home not long after Bree’s dad has departed for work. Since she is always in a hurry, we (Bree and I) usually help her to store away the fresh produce. Through the simple process of unpacking and sorting, Bree learns the names of vegetables. Some people think that their precious little children are too good to be doing work like this but if given the opportunity, such work is not only educational but it also satisfies their urge to help out. Children of Bree’s age are keen to help around the house.

At Stella’s house, the girls and I enjoy play acting. This is something that Stella really likes doing and Bree is beginning to show an interest in it too. Now that Stella is reading, I will write down examples of situations for her to act out. For Bree, I whisper a simple command in her ear for her to act out so that Stella can guess what the little imp is doing. One day, Bree’s and Stella’s dads arrived at the same time at Stella’s home. The two grown men decided to sneak in as quiet as possible to see what we were up to. They stood there watching for quite some time before Stella realised the two intruders were there. LOL.

Bree’s mouth doesn’t shut either when we go out for walks on most days. Never mind if she is naming the same things on the way out and again on the way back, she just has to yak and yak along the way. She used to describe things using only single words but nowadays she tries to construct ‘complex’ sentences of 4 words or more. When we do go out in the morning, we almost always walk past an elderly gentleman and his German Shepherd. She had been introduced to the dog when she was very small and called him ‘Rex’. When going to Stella’s in the afternoon, we also walk past a yappy little Jack Russel that lives on the same street as Stella. The elderly couple who own the Jack Russel introduced him as ‘Chip’. When we were out walking one day, Bree announced to me that Rex is big and Chip is only small. I instantly thought: “Oh, how wonderful. Bree knows the difference between big and small.” Recently, I decided to tell her that Rex is a German Shepherd after we saw him at the shops and did the same by telling her that Chip is a Jack Russel after walking past him on another day. Later when she was playing with Stella’s plastic animals, she found a Jack Russel and came rushing to tell me that she found Chip. She then turned to Stella and taught her that Chip is a Jack. LOL. Stella corrected her and proceeded to gather up all of her plastic dogs to teach Bree a few different breeds. I overheard what they were up to and I didn’t expect Bree to retain anything. The idea is to expose her to as many words describing as many concepts as possible.