What's your name?

Isaac mostly refers to himself as "baby." Sadly, this is because he's reluctant to say "Isaac." He usually tries to avoid saying words he thinks he can't pronounce, although he often has a creative alternative -- as I mentioned before, to avoid the F sound in "fire," he says "ha-ha" instead (because fire is hot). In the case of his name, I think he's uncertain about the S sound. He still pronounces "bus" as "but," after all. When prompted, he'll sometimes give "Izzy" a try, but Z is pretty close to S, and he'd really rather not get into it.

This leads to some interesting situations. When I told him yesterday that we were going to the park, he said, "Big kid!" with some excitement. I guess he likes watching the older children play. Today he said it again, and, wondering who he was talking about, I asked him, "Who's a big kid?" He pointed at himself and answered, "Baby." I had to laugh at the contradiction.

He would really like to be able to say his own name -- whatever it may be. This morning I was coaching him on "Izzy," but then off-handedly I added, "Or we could call you Ike." He jumped right on this. "Ack!" he cried. "Ack!"

Tonight I asked him, "What's your name?" and sure enough, he answered "Ack!"