Watching Her Language

Miss K has always been expressive.  I know that all babies communicate in some way, shape or form, but K just seemed to be extra expressive...facial expressions, eyebrow movements etc.  So it comes as no surprise that I find her current language to be pretty incredible.  Up until twenty months, her verbal language was pretty normal...saying all the things a regular baby should be.  But when that twenty month mark hit, her language just seemed to explode.

Not only was she saying three or four new words a day, she was making (what I think) are pretty advanced sounds.  When she says words like lunch, orange, garbage or ouch, the final sound is an extremely clear "ch" sound, except it comes out sounding like a fat kid with a lisp.  She squishes the sounds out from the back of her mouth, between her teeth.  It's tough to describe and I have been trying like a mad woman to catch it on videotape because it's too dang cute.

In the "maybe it's not impressive but it's super funny" category, Miss K likes to say the word "say" in front of a lot of words.  If I ask her what colour something is, she'll respond with "say blue!".  Initially, I wondered if she was saying, "c'est" instead, but then I realized what was happening...when we were teaching her different words, I would always say, "Say blue! Say Mommy! Say Shandi" and so now that's exactly what she's doing.  She sounds like a little Frenchwoman and, once again, it is just too dang cute.

K loves to tell babbly stories, but it's more than just random words.  When she puts the stories together with hand gestures, eye movement and head nodding, you know she's talking about something damn serious.   The last time she was at the doctor's office, as he was talking about her prescription, she stood in the middle of the room, facing him with her arms crossed and nodding her head, and matching his intonation, sound for sound.  It was as though she was giving her opinion on what he was saying.  She had us both in stitches.

The only "issue" I have with her language so far is her "esses".  She can say them just fine, except she likes to move the "s" from the start of the word to the end.  Spin becomes pins.  Stop becomes tops and so on.  Actually, that's not the only issue...there's the whole f-bomb thing as well.  We've always ignored it (although sometimes I do have to run to a different room to laugh), and yet she continues to throw them out randomly, but still in appropriate situations.  My fear continues to be that she is going to throw a couple out in the toddler room at church.  Leave it to my kid to damn the souls of thirteen other kids simultaneously.