Elijah and His Aboom

A few months ago I posted something about Elijah and his first words . . . I said he was saying "Mama" regularly and had started to say something all his own for "Kitty." I'm 98% sure I wasn't making that up, but then there were no new words and that word for kitty has pretty much disappeared (replaced by nothing, he mostly just points and screams at the poor Doctor). "Mama" didn't disappear but he still often said Mamamamamamamama. If you asked him "Where's Mama" he of course knew the answer, same with "Dada" and "Giraffe" and all that jazz, but now, as of about a week ago, it's like a light went off and he points at me and says "Mama" like a real word and like he really gets it. Also this week, he has started pointing at something else and saying the same thing over and over. It's a balloon we got at a party a few weeks ago and he looks at it and says, everytime, "Aboom." A new word? A coincidence? I have no idea. Like teeth coming in, this whole language acquisition stuff is exciting and sometime frustrating and mostly really unbelievable slow. Although, as I type that, I'm reminded of how really it's just slow to us. To Elijah, the world must be so overwhelmingly new all the time. Everything's an adventure. In fact, I just this second heard Marty say to him: "You've got your mommy's panties on your foot, son. I don't think she wants them there." See? Pretty exciting stuff . . .