We had been saying it consistently for him and around him for awhile. Then a couple of weeks ago he was playing with a little friend, Nova, who is about five months older than him. She was using "thank you" a lot and they share so well together that she was saying it every few minutes while we were there. A day or so later it popped out of Jack's mouth at an appropriate moment and he has not stopped using it since.
He can be having a meltdown to end all meltdowns -- like today in his carseat when I pulled out some dried mango as he was screaming and kicking and just as I handed it to him, he stopped short and calmly said, "tank coo", the huge tears on his face the only remnant of the complete meltdown occurring seconds before.
Words are so interesting for him in that way. They truly serve this amazing tranformative purpose -- I suppose it has to do greatly with his short attention span or ability to only really live in the present moment. But the act of him simply saying a word can shift his energy so dramatically sometimes. Sometimes I lead him in that direction but sometimes I have nothing to do with it at all. It is very clear that the understanding that he has of those few words like "bye bye" and "thank you" really help him create some little bit of order in his world that is still so full of unknowns.
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