Porter has not officially said any words in the context that would suggest direct linguistic communication. He babbles “dada” and “mama” but he has never pointed to Lil and said, “mama” or pointed at her and said “dada”. I’m not certain he’s pointed at anything. Usually he just looks at you, screams, and assumes that his psychic message has gotten through.
This has a success rate of about 85%.
The rest of the time we assume he’s tired and needs a nap.
But Porter has recently stumbled upon a piece of direct linguistic communication.
“Mmmmm,” Porter says after putting a piece of food in his mouth.
We know he got this from us, as we would try to prompt him to feed himself, watching as clumsily used utensils become apple sauce trebuchets, flinging the wet, cold, sticky substance near and far. Or, alternately, when its something he is definitely not going to put in his mouth, he employs the “clean sweep” method: quickly sweeping everything in front of him onto the floor.
Improvements are slow, from the perspective of parents who have to clean up mess after mess, but quick in the overall scheme of things. Just 8 months ago he’d never walked, didn’t know how to give kisses, and hadn’t grasped the excitement of “high fives” with anyone.
So this breakthrough in understanding, the connection between actions and verbal response, is quite impressive. He knows that when you put something in your mouth you like, you say “Mmmmm.”
Porter decided that he had sweat equity in the cupcake frosting enterprise at our friend Mindy's house.
