Have not been posting lately -- too tired from the trip, then Rocket Boy went out of town, so too tired from taking care of two two-year-olds by myself, also it's quite a bit over 100 degrees every day. And I'm 50. Excuses excuses, I know.
Spending all this time with the twins, I find myself listening closely to their language. I still worry about how slow their language development is, but at the same time, I'm happy that it is still developing, and it is certainly fun to observe.
Sometimes I think it must be hard to be the boos -- so much to say, and so few words to say it with. Can't remember if I've mentioned here that they have one word for all large farm animals: cow. A horse is a cow and a cow is a cow and a pig is a cow, etc. We have a nice wooden jigsaw puzzle of farm animals, and poor Baby B will grab a piece of the pig and say "Cow!" and then a piece of the horse, "Cow!", and then a piece of the cow, "Cow!" and so on. He can tell that he's holding up pieces of different animals, because he matches the piece of the pig up with other pieces of the pig, not pieces of the cow, but he still calls everything cow.
They have many other category words, such as "mococko" which means motorcycle, dirt bike, bicycle, and wheelchair. "Cake" means cake, but also means ice cream, or any sort of dessert other than very plain cookies. "Apple juice" covers all kinds of juice, and "apple" includes many other fruits, such as peaches, plums, cut-up watermelon, and small tomatoes. It is surprising, then, that they distinguish between hot tea and iced tea, but they do. I suppose it's because their parents drink so much of both beverages.
Several of their words sound exactly like their other words, but clearly are intended to mean different things -- in other words, they are (at least temporarily) homophones (words that sound the same but have different meanings, like to-too-two). For example, "eh-bey" means airplane and it also means blueberry. And actually it also means grape. I believe they think they have 2 different words, both pronounced eh-bey, but one means airplane and one means "small round fruit such as a blueberry."
Another homophone -- I think -- and category word -- I think -- is "bee," which means (1) bees and various other insects, and (2) raisins and other very small food items, mostly dried fruit but also I think a chocolate chip would be a "bee" and an M&M would be a "bee." I hope I'm right about this one, and "bee" isn't just a really big category word, including both insects and raisins in the same category. That would just be too weird.
Then there's kee-kee, kee-tee, and tee-tee, which are not homophones, but which sound enough alike for me (with my failing hearing) to confuse them. "Kee-kee" is cookie. "Kee-tee" is kitty, specifically our skinny little cat Whiskers. Our huge black cat Pie Bear is never called "kee-tee," only "Pie." Oh and then there's "tee-tee," which means train. Tee-tee sounds a little different from the others, but I am constantly mixing up kee-kee and kee-tee, offering the boos a Teddy Graham when they are trying to tell me that Whiskers has just entered the room.
Despite their limited vocabularies, the boos are constantly picking up on things I say, and then repeating them. And it's always the things I don't want them to say, such as "shut up!" which they yell at each other crossly while sitting in their carseats. "Oh no, don't say that to your brother," I call sweetly from the front seat, insincerely, since it was obviously ME who said it originally. Another recent phrase is "Stupid cat!" which I obviously say entirely too often about Whiskers. The babies wander the house muttering "stupid cat, stupid cat."
Baby B in particular has a good ear for profanity -- when he could say almost nothing else intelligible we would hear him saying "Shit! Shit!" to his stuffed animals. I haven't heard that in a while, nor have I heard "oh my God" which was also popular for a time, and which I made a determined effort to stop saying. More recently he has been saying "God damn it!" when he drops something or experiences some other minor difficulty. I pretend that he's not saying that, and try to rephrase: "Got do it? You got to do it! That's great!"
I think it's kind of neat that most of their recent vocabulary building has been names: Baba, Nonny, Matt, Ohray, Rick, and I think I'm finally hearing something like Jim. They spend all their time talking about how none of these people are with us. "No Baba, no Nonny," etc. This weekend we visited their cousins in LA and now they talk about no Dubee, no Jaw, and no Ree. Also there's someone called Ow (not to be confused with an "owie") but I don't know who Ow is. Whoever he or she is, he or she is not with us, because the babies tell me, sadly, "No Ow." And of course, "No Dada. Dada fo (phone)."
But I'm here. "Got Mommy!" Baby B says when I greet them in the morning, and Baby A chortles in delight.
No comments:
Post a Comment