The twins are talking in complete sentences now, at almost 22 months, even with each other. One recent exchange between them:
Jocelyn tries to feed Perry a cracker.
Perry: Put it back in the box.
Jocelyn: No. You eat it.
Jocelyn recently stowed her doll under the slide outside and said, "I put my doll away." Later she said, "I got my doll back." She is getting over her confusion between the first and second person pronouns.
I have been continually astonished over the sophistication of their use of language. I had no idea they could do the things they are doing. Two months ago, Perry replied to my saying "two blocks" with "Two blocks. Who sews Sue's socks?" The latter part is a line from "Fox in Socks". I was unaware that a 20 month old could recognize and create a rhyme!
A day or so ago, I was pointing out lilacs to Jocelyn out the car window. A few days before, I had showed her one up close and let her smell it. I said in the car, "Those purple flowers are called 'lilacs'. Can you say 'lilacs'?" To which Jocelyn responded, with a devilish grin: "Fwowers."
That's not the first verbal joke she's made. I was singing to her a song with the line, "When I'm not with you, I'm blue." Jocelyn grinned and said, "Red!"
Just this morning, I was encouraging Perry to come down the staircase by "bumping on his bum." I went on, "Bump, bump, bump. Did you ever ride a wump?" from "One Fish, Two Fish". Perry replied, "Hop, hop, hop. Did you ever ride a yop?" A totally new creation, and again, a rhyme. Later today, he went on with "We have a yop with just one hop."
Jocelyn has clearly figured out the rules for plurals. She says "foots" and "sheeps".
Perry has been making up new songs for a long time. Old MacDonald has acquired a clock: with a tick tock here and a tick tock there. Also a fire truck with a "nee nor here and a nee nor there." This comes from a book of "Down by the Station" in which you "see the shiny fire engines all in a row" and "the firefighters climb the little ladder. Nee nor, nee nor, off we go." The bus (the one with wheels that go 'round and 'round) has a sheep: The sheep on the bus goes "baa, baa, baa." And a car on the bus goes "beep beep beep."
Perry has drawn an interesting conclusion about infinitives. When we ask him "Do you want Mommy to read a book?" he hears the whole noun-plus-infinitive phrase as a unit, as if it were "Do you want a cracker?" So when he wants Mommy to read a book, he says, "Mommy to read, Mommy to read."
Perry clearly has a sense of meter and scansion . He knows that "Hot cross buns" and "Click, clack, moo" are the same, because he was saying "Click, clack, moo; click, clack, moo. One a penny, two a penny. Click, clack, moo." Judy heard him saying "Hot cross moo," too.
Perry has what seems to me a phenomenal verbal memory. He can remember what word comes next in a book he has only had for 24 hours. Wednesday we got "Stellaluna" from the library. Thursday he could say, "Oh!" and "Flumpf" at the appropriate times, and fill in other words too. Today we bought a book at the library book sale. One of the mother's helps read it to him twice, and he already can fill in words. We've had it less than two hours.
Sometimes he points to words and says, "What does that say?" suggesting that he has the concept that meaning is encoded in the printed words.
Jocelyn understands gerunds. When she saw a picture of a cat with its eyes closed, she said, "Sleep." When I asked her what a boy in a picture was doing, she said "sleeping."