What's new in Tuck & Emi-land:

Tuck is getting a series of hearing tests, as it's possible that he may have some trouble hearing with his right ear. This might go a long way toward explaining his articulation problems -- try plugging your own right ear with a finger and then listening to someone talk. The sound gets kind of glugged up and would be hard to reproduce accurately. Don't ask me for details yet, since this is still in the early stages. More tests in two weeks' time.

This has not hampered his shy but resolutely creative use of language. Once he understands how something works, he comes up with his own function-based name for it and that is what he is sticking with despite pressure from peers, parents, books, etc. For example: it is a water hyrant (not a fire hydrant), a water truck (not a fire truck), and an animal-go-round (not a merry-go-round).

Meanwhile, Emi has advanced to lots of word games and to gross-out/offbeat humor. Example of a word game is my saying, "OK, here are two cups of juice for you and your brother," and Emi responding, "Here are two cups of juice for your moosey bears ... Here are two cups of juice for your juicy bears! Juicy moosey bears! Moosey juicy bears!" Etc. (I do occasionally call one or the other of them a moosey bear but hadn't for several weeks before this.)

Example of Emi's current gross-out/offbeat humor, from this morning:
Me: What kind of yogurt do you want?
Tuck: Strawberry yogurt!
Me: Oops, sorry, we only have orange, lemon, and peach. Which of those do you want?
Emi: Emi wants monkey yogurt!
Me: Monkey yogurt?
Emi: It has monkeys in it!
... [much discussion follows of what other kinds of yogurt are possible, dwelling at great length on bug yogurt and elephant yogurt, then moving on to who might eat these yogurts that Emi is inventing.]
Emi: Zoey eats elephant yogurt. It has elephants in it. Then Zoey makes a elephant doo!

Charming.