Words Words Words!

Wow. It is such a fertile developmental time for Anjali and her communication. It truly seems that each day she wakes up knowing noticeably more than she did when she fell asleep the night before; literally the first few words she utters in the day oftentimes are something new. It seems that it might be more efficient to catalog the everyday words she hasn't repeated as opposed to the ones she has. And if she isn't repeating words ~ translated with her own Anjali dialect, of course, she's singing back to you the musicality and rhythm of a phrase. Over. and over. and over. and over again! She is constantly pointing to things and humming, "Hmm?" requesting that I tell her what a thing is.

She has gotten to the point where she is making noun-verb combinations consistently, such as "Mommy reach," or "Papi working." "Ing" verbs are her favorite right now ~ Mommy walking, Mommy coming, Baby running, Doogy (Kitty) licking. And in the past week she has started to add "s" to things ~ as in making something plural, or changing the verb tense, very generously. For instance, if she were referring to some shoes, which she already pronounced with an "s", she'll say, "shoes," and then add an extra-enunciated, "ps" on the end (for good measure). Or, "pats (pants)," and then a second later, very deliberately, "ts."

If she is trying to explain something and we're not understanding, or if we ask her a question, sometimes she'll scrunch her shoulders up and tilt her head to the side and launch into several sentences worth of very fast baby gibberish. I try really hard to understand what she describes, asking her to repeat a word again and again, which she will, and sometimes it takes a minute or two and then it'll dawn on me ~ "Oh!!! YELLOW shoes! You want the YELLOW shoes!" and she'll smile and nod emphatically. Other times all I can do is say, "Oh. Ok." If she makes a request for something, such as for some peach, and you affirm what she wants, "Oh, you'd like some peach," she scrunches her shoulders up and has this scrunchy-nose smile and nod that is quite persuasive, especially to the grandmotherly persuasion. ; )

She has replaced all her sign language with words, though she often still uses the sign for "more" when she says the word. And she does still use sound effects for some words, like "zzzz!" to describe a housefly. The latest sign to be replaced was "milk", which is now "wok" (I don't even know how I figured that one out!) ~ the same as for "walk" and "rock". Going for a walk is about her favorite activity, so this is pretty confusing, and I don't want to get it wrong and lead her to believe we're headed out the door! : )

A psychologically interesting development is that a few weeks ago, she started referring to herself as "baby", even though she already had a pronunciation of "Anjali" ~ "Ahn-djee".

She likes to go around the room and say who is doing or eating what, such as, "Baby wok (milk), Mommy tea, Papi kah-pee (coffee)," or "Mommy kah-kah (cracker), Baby kah-kah."

And she recently grasped the concept that not all fruit on a tree is a plum (like in our backyard) ~ she noticed apples on a tree, and said, "App-ah Tee!"

Let me see if I can come up with a list of some more words she has incorporated into everyday vocabulary:

Kah-kah - cracker

Wok - milk

Wok-kah - marker

Ping - pen

Keem - cream

Geen - green ~ as in the greens (kale, clover, etc.) that we feed to the chickens

Lallow - yellow (though I'm not sure she knows which color it is..)

Boo - blue (same as with yellow)

Ordge - orange (definitely same as with the other colors ~ she called a green towel "ordge" yesterday. : )

Doogy - Kitty (and Rodolfo)

Doo-dat - kitty cat (any old kitty cat, for example, one in a book)

Doo-dree - blueberry

Joody - cherry

Sujee - smoothie

Wah-wah - water

Peech - peach (replaced "butch")

Geeps - grapes ~ another favorite

Corn - corn. She might like corn on the cob as much as Mommy does! I cook her a whole ear all to herself!

Mah-nos - tomatoes ~ specifically, cherry tomatoes, which she loves

(she has some kind of word for "coconut", but I don't remember right now..)

Sha-shee - the chicken, Sassy

Fuh-fie - butterfly

Eh-pane - airplane (she notices airplanes in the air sometimes when I do not)

Tane - train ~ every large, loud vehicle is a train, such as firetrucks, buses, and large vans. : )

Yeah! - a very recent affirmative (which I like a lot : )

I think I could keep going! But I'll stop for now. : )

I realize as I look back at this account that these are the details only a mommy or grandparent could be interested in, but that's what this blog is for, right?! But just so you didn't read all those words for nothing, here're a couple photos as a dessert. This is Anjali walking to the Farmers' Market with the doll, Baby, strapped to her back with a scarf; I did the tying, but she wore that baby all the way there, the whole time we were there, and the whole way back. : )