New noises

While we were away visiting some of Kenya's game parks in the past few days (see our other blog), Lexi seems to have added yet another new sound - make that noise - to her repertoir. Now she's experimenting with her upper ranges and making a squeaking or squealing noise. She sounds like a squeaky door hinge. Sometimes she'll make this squealing noise only for a few minutes, or else she'll combine it with a few of her other sounds for an interesting variety of voices.

I vowed when I had children that I would never have one - like many 2-year olds - who screach. I'm afraid that Lexi is practicing to be a good screacher when she's 2.

But what is fun about this is that she's purposely making sounds with her mouth and throat and experimenting a lot now. And now she's making some noises sometimes with some inflection - nonsense words that are spoken like real words. Will it be too long before she's actually speaking to us?

And now I can "speak" to her with one of her earlier noises - the gurgling noises she makes in the back of her throat. She recognizes well when I make this noise to her. She'll often respond with it herself. I feel like it's our own little language - just between us - but I wish I knew what I was saying!