Vocabulary of a toddler

I decided to perform a mental inventory of David's vocabulary to date. Sometime in the last few weeks, he went from babble (with an occasional word mixed in) to actually expressing himself on occasion. It's such a gradual shift, you hardly even realize it's coming.

The current words are:

Dada - me, of course. But any tall, bearded male will suffice for using the word.

Mama - Jane. He doesn't mix that one up as often.

Baba - his bottle. He'll use it now to clearly tell us he wants one.

That - anything other than a bottle that he wants. He'll point to the object and say "that".

Some kind of shrieking noise that means "Gracie". We know that because he uses the shriek to address the cat, and only for that purpose.

Duck - one of his favorite animals. He points to them in his board books when he says it.

Quack - because that's what ducks say, of course...

No - usually he parrots it back to us when we try and tell him not to do something.

There's a few more words that he understands, but doesn't say. Clap, for instance. If you say it to him, he starts clapping. He also knows many of his foods by name.

I have no idea how that compares with other kids, but it's real cool to see.

In other news, a mouse paid us a visit this evening - Jane saw it in the cellar when she was down there earlier. It scampered along the burlap in the ceiling, then popped out and ran away along a pipe. We've had them drop in a few times over the years - they don't stay long and generally do no harm. I laid a couple of peanut-butter baited traps out just in case this one gets any ideas about staying.

A neighborhood cat killed one and left it in our backyard the other day. This was probably one of it's littermates.