Language Inventory

Because I've been meaning to do it for ages, here it is for posterity. Sebastian is 18 months old today. His receptive vocabulary is fantastic, in both English and Finnish. Conversationally, he understands probably 1000+ words, including two- or more-step directions and questions. He can point to body parts, animals, household items, vehicles, and foods consistently. He is getting the hang of colors and even some letters. He holds books the right way, turns pages from left to right, and knows when words are "upside down" and will turn them "rightside up."

His expressive vocabulary is a bit more limited still, but that's normal, particularly for kids learning more than one language at a time. He does a lot of pointing and gesturing, but is generally pretty clear about expressing his wants/needs even without tons of words.

So here we go. An inventory of Sebastian's words as of 18 months. (Just a note: the "words" he uses right now are more like word approximations and rarely sound exactly like the words they're supposed to be. But we know what they mean.) What I can remember off the top of my head right now, at least.

Consistent words:
frog ("baaah")
up
more ("mah")
on ("ahh")
Blue's Clues (ok this one is pathetic...but he's obsessed lately...he says "boo boo" in a high pitched voice with his hands by his face like in the show...sigh)
ball ("bah")

Inconsistent words:
apple ("ah-pah")
go
shh
down ("ow")
Ella (one of the dogs) "eh-wah"
Pan (one of the cats) "pah"
book "boo"
help (he uses the Finnish word for help, actually: "auta," which he pronounced "awah")
walk "wah"

Signs:
yes (nodding)
no (shaking head)
all done
uh-oh
again
juice
eat
sleep
apple
grapes
dog
come here
sit
orange
cracker
music/sing
diaper
hi/bye (wave)

I'll talk to Ken later and see if he can think of any more. But for now, there they are. He's really starting to babble more different sounds now, so I'm thinking the expressive language explosion is right around the corner.

Edited on 2/8/10 to add that Sebastian is now quite proficient at signing "snow" after the weekend we've had. Oy.