Say Cheese

We seem to have hit another magic development window and it's really noticeable with his speech. At nineteen (almost) months old he's started to pick up new words at a quicker rate and I am beginning to wonder just how much of what I say to him he really does understand.
He's stopped saying "Gone down" quite so much now, but it still comes round pretty regularly. We had almost a week where that was all he would say about anything and it got a little wearing towards the end.
His next favourite word is "Garden", usually used to ask if he can go out and play. However, he did do something interesting last week. He looked out of an upstairs window and said "Garden gone down" which I think meant "the garden is down there". This means that he's starting to connect words together a little. This is a very early age for doing that and I am very impressed. Either that or it was just a fluke and he was shouting out his two favourite sounds.
Saying Mummy and Daddy has made a comeback at last and now I think he often means me when he says it. Ah.
At the moment he loves playing with wooden shape puzzles. He has a number puzzle with pictures that he loves and if you ask him "where's the cars?" he can point to them. He can manage most of them now except ladybirds and pencils. If you ask him to point to the ladybirds he points to the little birds elsewhere on the puzzle. It's an understandable mistake.
He can almost say "balloon" now, which is quite sweet. If you ask him to point to the balloons on the puzzle, he will and he will also often clap his hands - once and as loudly as possible. Granny has taught him that balloons go BANG! and that's all he thinks about now! Also, if you ask him what a fish does he will look at you slightly sheepishly and then will open and shut his mouth. I'm trying to teach him to do the gills with his hands and I've had a small amount of success.
Now all I have to do is train him to say "Mummy I am full, I don't want any more of the nice food that you have made for me. Thank you for making it for me, I love you." instead of just trying to throw it all over the floor.
Andy has decided that food thrown on the floor will not be returned to him, which is fine when it comes to things like biscuits, but when he's throwing things away because he doesn't want to eat them rather than in a fit of frustration it might backfire. Still, having watched enough episodes of SuperNanny I have taken more of a no nonsense attitude to meal times. If he kicks up a fuss and doesn't eat then he doesn't get anything else. If I'm feeling charitable then he'll get to try it again in a bit but no treats. I did once have to send him to bed hungry.
It makes me sound like a tough and straight down the line sort of person! I'm not at all! I was so worried when he refused that dinner and I was terrified I was doing the wrong thing! I have also discovered that if you distract him with Chuggington he eats more and it's always worth melting some cheese on the top of something he's not so sure of as he likes melted cheese.
I'm starting to wonder if there might be some American DNA in him!! (he did once eat a whole plate of loaded nachos as well)