Vocabulary

Michael's started to develop his vocabulary.

This week, I've observed him say the following words:

• Da-da
• Shop-ping (for Michael, any sort of outing, trip to the park, the store, the mall falls under the category of "shopping".  He likes to go out, and refers to it as "shopping").
• Bei-jing (Mom reads him stories in Mandarin, so he must have picked up the capital of China from one of those).
• Nai-nai (Cantonese for "milk").
• Mmm-bak (Cantonese for "five hundred")
• Jiu ... shi (Mandarin for "nine, ten")

He also gibbers and gabbers in baby speak.  He's a very confident speaker, he'll walk right up to me, point his finger, look me in the eyes, and start gibbering away in a bossy tone, like he's instructing me to do (or not do something).  I have no doubt that to him, he's explaining something very important, but I really don't understand what he's saying so I nod and say "yep, got it."

Michael also uses a lot of body language.  He knows "yes" (nodding head), "no" (shaking head).  He also points to things he wants to play with and makes an emphatic "MMMMM" sound.