Language and New Games

Well, these "games" aren't quite new, but the way Nicholas is playing them this week certainly is. He made a language leap of some sort this week and is suddenly responding to a bunch of words with the corresponding actions . He will walk us to the place we mention, assuming it is somewhere he is agreeable to the idea of at that moment and that we keep saying the word as we walk so he doesn't get distracted by toys we pass. That one is useful. But the really fun ones are the new "games," which I will term the "yay game" and the "peekaboo game." I know, I'm great at names, aren't I?

Anyway, the "yay game" consists of him clapping and us saying, you guessed it, "yay!" When he claps he looks at us expectantly for our part. In fact, this game started in the car on the way back from NY last weekend, when he was calling to us and so we looked in the mirror and saw him sitting there clapping. Not knowing what he wanted, we clapped as well and said "yay," because that is what you say when you clap, and his smile clearly told us that was what he wanted. Over the course of the next hour this happened repeatedly. And if we stopped paying attention to him and so didn't notice he had started clapping again, he'd call to us so we could do our part. Either party can initiate the game. If he claps, he expects us to say "yay" and if we say "yay" when he isn't clapping, he will clap. Seriously, whatever he is doing, he stops to clap if you say "yay." It is hilarious.

The "peekaboo game" is pretty similar. And, in fact, it is only tangentially related to actually playing peekaboo, a game which he apparently understands both better and worse than we realized. He has enjoyed pulling things off our heads or his own head for months, so playing peekaboo, but has never initiated it by covering his own head. Well then the other night he started holding a toy up above his head and then quickly bringing it down. I don't know how to describe what he was doing clearly or his expression, but it was clear he was playing peekaboo. So we said "peekaboo" and he said, "yep, you got it right" with his expression. Then the next night at dinner he started doing it again, except this time without anything in his hands. Here is the video I took when I realized this was going to go on for awhile:

From 2010 March

And so now whenever you say peekaboo he puts his hands above his head and brings them down. And sometimes when you are randomly doing something else he will start doing that and expects you to play along. I'm proud of him for now initiating the game. But he apparently doesn't get the hiding part of peekaboo.

The really interesting thing is that we weren't trying to teach him these things or anything. He just did an action and we responded with the word we thought he was trying to indicate and knew we had gotten it right when his face lit up. Okay, and since then we've done it some just for fun to see if it works or for our own amusement. But since his eyes glisten with pride and accomplishment when he knows he has done the "right" movement for the word we said, I think we all win.