October 10, 2001 - Wednesday
Back in January, I was thinking that maybe I'd slow down writing this journal a bit: that maybe the speed of Harry's development would itself decrease and there would be less to write about. Boy was that wrong. Once a day is hardly enough. So, here's an update on several things...

Harry likes to play with the megabloks and his favorite thing to build is a lighthouse, or "ligh-corn." That comes from a library book that featured a dog named Muffin going to sea. The book featured a lot of noises including the sound of a lighthouse foghorn. Since the book was such a big hit, I built a lighthouse out of the megablocks once. I guess Harry liked it because every time we play with the megabloks he talks about building another. Except, for a long time, Harry kept asking to build a foghorn. I've tried to teach him that the foghorn is in the lighthouse, but Harry has gotten only part way there and now requests "lighcorn."

A week ago at grandpa's house, Harry used the word "yesterday" to describe something that happened the day before. Since that's more a concept than a word I figured I ought to see if Harry really understood it. Sure enough, Harry's been saying yesterday regularly since then, although occasionally he's referring to incidents "in the past" rather than specifically yesterday.

Harry has been using pronouns. Also about a week ago, he responded to his mother talking about "your pants" by saying "my pants." Pronouns are another very difficult concept and I wasn't completely sure I heard him correctly, but Harry's been venturing there as well, albeit sparingly.

"Where'd it go?" has been one of Harry favorite phrases. He'll say something like "cat go, where'd it go?" but with the exaggerated inflection of a question, a furrowed brow, a shake of the head, and a notably rising in vocal pitch at the end.

When we were at the cabin over the weekend Harry asked "bulldozer go, where'd it go?" about a forestry bulldozer we had seen in a specific spot last time we visited the cabin three months ago. His memory is therefore at least three months.

Harry's song requests at bedtime are becoming more emphatic, including reprises of songs by saying "again." That's only to be expected, I suppose, as he gets more confident. However, Harry has oddly started to ask me to sing a song his mother knows. I told him several days in a row that I simply don't know it and can't sing it, but he has persisted to the point where I wonder if he's just playing with me now.

Harry has been calling out his mother's first name in addition to or instead of "mommy." Obviously this is a result of me calling to her at some point, although I've done it very little since Harry picked up on it.

Harry is louder now, regularly squealing at the top of his lungs for excitement


Comments, opinions?