Monday, May 4, 2009

Translation Frustration

Loic has entered one of my favorite stages of language development.  He's now stringing 2, 3, and sometimes 4, words together at a time.  Understandable words, that is.  Or at least understandable to me.  Bill is amazed at how well I understand him, and I must say that I AM getting pretty good at it.  But I do spend all day, every day with the kid, so the fact that I have picked up on many of his words and phrases is no surprise.  I'll jot (can you say "jot" when you're typing?) a few of my favorites down here --

Lee-lee:  blanket
Doe-toe:  motorcycle
Dottij-jee:  cottage cheese
Nahnume:  vacuum
Dee-Do:  Thank you (he uses this one a lot, and it can also mean "me, too.")
Eee-uhh:  See ya!
Lurlie:  Laurence (my personal favorite)

Of course there are plenty more, and many, many more that he uses that he can say clear as day.  The kid talks a lot.  He talks to anyone, anywhere.  Thankfully, he doesn't seem to get frustrated that most people can't understand him most of the time; he's just happy to talk.  At this point I think he's just glad that I can understand him, since I tend to most of his needs.  This morning, though, I clearly let him down.  

He was eating his breakfast -- Ut-eel (oatmeal) -- and said "Oh, Mommy, D-Dog moon!"  The first three words were obvious.  "Oh" - got it.  "Mommy" - got it.  "D-Dog" - got it.  (He calls any dog "D-Dog," and though he knows Eimer's name and can say it rather clearly, he continues to affectionately refer to her as D-Dog, usually when she's doing something wrong.)  "Moon" had me stumped, however.  I immediately located the dog, who was happily working her rawhide bone, a few feet away from Loic's chair.  Ah, ha!  Perhaps moon = bone!  I said, "Yes, D-Dog is chewing her bone."  "Oh, Mommy, D-Dog moon!" he said again, louder, meaning I didn't get it right.  I looked around a bit, hoping & praying that he wasn't using "moon" for "poo" this morning (D-Dog has been known to have an occasional accident in the house), but that didn't seem to be it, either.  I repeated, "D-Dog IS chewing her bone, isn't she?"  Loic, clearly irritated, yells, "Mommmmy!  D-Dog moooon!"  I went over to him, and calmly said, "It's ok, Loic, D-Dog is fine, can you eat --" and suddenly realized the issue.  Moon=spoon.  Apparently dear D-Dog had taken Loic's spoon from his tray.  There it was, on the floor, licked clean.  The deed done, she'd moved on to her bone and left poor, frustrated Loic unable to finish his ut-eel.  

This certainly doesn't add to the humor of the situation, but for the record, I DID get Loic a new spoon.


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