First words

Little Rajiv is beginning to form his first real words and it is a fascinating process.
It is a bit difficult to keep track of his vocabulary, because sometimes he will use one word one day and then never again. For example he said his name - "Appu" - a few times, with a strong American accent by the way, but just when we were getting all excited about it he dropped it. Sometimes he makes vague "m" sounds that could be interpreted as mommy requests, and occasionally he will say "mamma", but now he hasn't said it for a while.

The one word we are sure he understands and speaks himself is "ball" ("palla" in Italian). He has a toddler sized soccer ball and if I ask him for the "palla" he goes around and looks for it. He also looks for it immediately if he sees a picture of the ball in a book or on his alphabet blocks. For a while he was saying "ba" or "pa" for it, but now he seems to have settled for "bai" or occasionally "pai". If he sees the picture of the ball he screams "bai!" and then we go to find it.

He probably thinks there are many other things he says, in his cute tonal babbling, but unfortunately his his parents don't get it. Sorry Appu, please don't give up on us... :)