Joseph says mama

My long wait finally came to and end. I had been waiting for the day Joseph would say "ma ma". He did it on Saturday 20th May. It was the sweetest sound to my ears. After he accomplished mama, he added mummum to his vocabulary. Somewhere along the way, he also started saying "hot" referring to the pot that just came off the stove. It amazes me how much this little toddler understands. Just yesterday, he was enjoying his bubble bath with the lower half of his body completely covered by bubbles. When he was asked, "where is your leg?", he happily lifted his left leg out of the water and laughed. Then we asked him, "your other leg?" and he lifted his right leg. He understands and obeys when we tell him to lie down, sit down. I take him to the window and ask him "Got rain or not?" and he will put out his hand as if to check for rain drops. In spite of all this apparent intelligence, he refuses to understand the word NO. Smacking his hand yields no result. The rotan is sitting around. I have yet to use it. It's so long, I'm afraid I'll injure Joseph. My mother says he's too young to understand. I find that absolutely illogical since this smart kid understands various commands and knows how to look at the sky when we say "aeroplane" and "helicopter". Surely the one-syllable no is much simpler to comprehend. For now, his favourite word is still "ball" whenever he sees a ball or anything that looks round like a ball, and "pa", referring to his dad. I'll have to wait (hopefully not too long) till he starts saying "ma" more often.