Word Up!
Signs (as of 15 months): Milk, More, All Done, Eat, Drink, Potty
Spoken Words (as of 18 months): Mommy, Dada, Bru(ce), Papa (Grandpa), No, Up, Down, Off, More, Mine, Bear, Bird, Dog, Cat, Duck, Bee, Door, Bus, Car, Truck, Hi, Bye, Please, Juice, Eggs, Cheese, Banana, Keys, Park, Side (Inside, Outside, & Other Side), Bath, Ball, Balloon, Bubble, Baby, Dry, Pee, TV, Tree, Shoes, Boots, Book, Blue, Purple, Pink, Jacket.
Pronunciations (19 Months): Door, Stroller, Chair, and Grover all sound like “door”. Bear, Bruce, and Barrett all sound like “boor”. Apple and Help are also homonyms: “eh-puh”. Butterfly sounds like “bye”. Grandma sounds like “dumber”. She no longer says “dog”, just “oof”, and cat is usually “mao”. My favourite, which I will be very sad to lose, is “eggy” instead of “egg”.
22 Months: We tried to count how many words Aurora speaks a couple of weeks ago, but we lost track after 400 words. It’s probably over 550 by now. I’m sorry to say that “eggy” is gone for good (replaced by the boring but serviceable “egg”), but “dog” is back, although vastly overshadowed by “puppy”. Grandma Gail has graduated from “Dumber” to “Damma Deal”. Some great pronunciations include “mah-ki moan-ie” instead of macaroni, “muht” instead of milk, and “Doo-doo” instead of “Lulu”. I think I’ve already mentioned, but it bears repeating, that Cookie Monster is known as “Dookie Monker”. On occasion, but never when prompted, Aurora can spontaneously count from one to ten, which is a magnificent feat, but not a great party trick yet. “Ten” is usually followed by “eighteen” or “thirty”. The word “music” is so horribly mispronounced that I can’t even transliterate it here, and she usually has to repeat it several times and point at the radio or iPod before I can figure out what she’s talking about. She loves to repeat me when I say, “Okey-dokey” or “crappy”. Three-word sentences are common, but they’re usually missing all verbs, conjunctions, and pronouns. Aw, who needs ‘em?
27 months: My favourite words this week: “Gunnit”, as in “We are gunnit go to the park” and “Feegot”, as in “I feegot my mouses and my bears and my cars…”. Other great toddler-speak includes the “ed” at the end of words being fully pronounced, as in “Daddy, I miss ed you” or “I jump ed on the tamborine (trampoline) today.”
3 years: Aurora pronounces things quite well now, except for a few really cute words, like “uddoe” (little), “nuffing” (nothing), and “Lighting Makeen” (no explanation necessary). Her really noticeable difference in talking is her speed, or lack thereof. Not only does she pronounce each word as carefully as she can, there are often long pauses between words. That, combined with the usual low volume of her speech, makes conversations in cafés or on busy streets nearly impossible. Recent additions to her vocabulary include the names of about 25 dinosaurs (and counting), which are her current obsession. She also likes to make up the names of new dinosaurs. My favourite? Rectangalosaurus. I also love the phrase, “Why arm I?” instead of “Why am I?”