Pardon Me Whilst I Shit a Brick of Pride
The nice daycare people have been saying that though she’s lagging in the ambulatory department – she’s still not walking, though we expect her to start anytime now – Baby Dog is incredibly advanced in every other way. She is able to play alone and entertain herself happily but can also share toys with the other babies. Most especially, they’re very impressed with her verbal abilities. We knew that she was a very smart, chatty baby, but we didn’t really get too excited about these anecdotal observations until yesterday, when Mama Dog forwarded an email from this service she subscribes to, which describes your baby’s theoretical development from month to month. This is what it has to say about the cognitive development of 14-month-old children: “At 14 months, your toddler understands many more words than she can say. Her spoken vocabulary likely consists of about three to five words, typically "Mama," "Dada," and one other simple word such as "ball" or "dog," but she learns the meanings of new words every day.” We were both similarly agog at that. We knew for sure that Baby Dog was speaking way more than three to five words.
Today, on a whim, I started tallying up the words Baby Dog speaks. She uses some of them more frequently than others, and there are a few she said for a while and then seemed to forget about. Her pronunciation is a little shaky and her usage is uncertain, but there were so damn many of them. I ran out of steam at 88 words. I’ve certainly forgotten a bunch, so my estimate is that our 14-month-old has a spoken vocabulary in excess of 100 words, and she shows a clear understanding of many many others. (Note, for example, that she generally says either the name of an animal or the noise it makes but not both; she definitely knows both words, though.)
Anyway, here’s the list of Baby Dog’s words, as best I could remember them today:
1. (her own name)
2. ah-choo
3. apple
4. baa
5. baby
6. bah-poo (a word of her own devising; we eventually figured out it means “diaper”)
7. ball
8. balloons (usually pronounced “boonze”)
9. banana (generally she says “nana”)
10. bath
11. bib (usually pronounced “bub”)
12. birdy
13. blue
14. boat
15. bone
16. boom
17. Bud (the name of the titular swine in her absolute favourite book – a bath book – “What a Pig!”
18. butterfly (usually pronounced something like “buh” or “buf”)
19. burp
20. bus
21. bwoop bwoop (the sound that Daddy taught her fish fake)
22. bye-ee (usually spoken after the person she’s been asked to say goodbye to has already left)
23. bzzzz (actually, the sound is a raspberry, but it’s as close as she can come to a bumblebee buzz)
24. car
25. cheese
26. da-da (there was confusion about this early on – it means not “daddy” but “music”; specifically, the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” as played by her musical butterfly; comes from imitating Mama Dog or Halmonie as they hummed along to the tune – “da da, da da da da da….”)
27. daddy
28. dirty
29. doggie
30. door
31. drawer (hard to hear the difference between “door” and “drawer,” but she uses them appropriately)
32. ducky
33. ee-ee-ee (the sound Daddy taught her is made by monkeys or, as Baby Dog pointed out, the fake President)
34. elbow
35. eyes (applied indiscriminately to refer both to eyes and ears)
36. ha ha (usually spoken after hearing the word “fun” or “funny”; also used spontaneously as a laugh when amused)
37. halmonie
38. hand
39. hat
40. hi
41. hide
42. home
43. hoo (as in “what does the owl say?”)
44. hop (usually used to refer to the book “Hop on Pop”)
45. hot
46. house
47. juice (just started saying that today)
48. keys
49. knees
50. lemons
51. maa (according to “The Very Busy Spider,” that’s what goats say)
52. mail
53. map
54. melon (exclusively used to mean “watermelon”)
55. meow
56. mess
57. monkey
58. moo
59. moon
60. moose
61. mummy
62. neigh
63. night-night
64. no
65. nose
66. num num or nummy
67. out
68. pee
69. shhhhh
70. shoes
71. snacky
72. spoon
73. stay (when Daddy makes Doggy Dog lie down in the bedroom to get him out from underfoot at dinner time, he sternly says “Lie down!” at which point Baby Dog gleefully exclaims “Stay!” because she knows that’s what’s coming next; then she repeats it throughout dinner)
74. sun
75. teeth
76. there
77. this
78. toes
79. towel
80. tree
81. tweet
82. uh-oh! (usually spoken after throwing something to the floor from the high chair; still hasn’t match Baby Pirate’s record of saying “uh-oh!” before throwing something to the floor from the high chair)
83. up
84. whale
85. woof
86. yay
87. yes
88. zizzuzz (meaning Ziggety Zug, the name Mama Dog gave to Baby Dog’s beloved Uglydoll)
Today, on a whim, I started tallying up the words Baby Dog speaks. She uses some of them more frequently than others, and there are a few she said for a while and then seemed to forget about. Her pronunciation is a little shaky and her usage is uncertain, but there were so damn many of them. I ran out of steam at 88 words. I’ve certainly forgotten a bunch, so my estimate is that our 14-month-old has a spoken vocabulary in excess of 100 words, and she shows a clear understanding of many many others. (Note, for example, that she generally says either the name of an animal or the noise it makes but not both; she definitely knows both words, though.)
Anyway, here’s the list of Baby Dog’s words, as best I could remember them today:
1. (her own name)
2. ah-choo
3. apple
4. baa
5. baby
6. bah-poo (a word of her own devising; we eventually figured out it means “diaper”)
7. ball
8. balloons (usually pronounced “boonze”)
9. banana (generally she says “nana”)
10. bath
11. bib (usually pronounced “bub”)
12. birdy
13. blue
14. boat
15. bone
16. boom
17. Bud (the name of the titular swine in her absolute favourite book – a bath book – “What a Pig!”
18. butterfly (usually pronounced something like “buh” or “buf”)
19. burp
20. bus
21. bwoop bwoop (the sound that Daddy taught her fish fake)
22. bye-ee (usually spoken after the person she’s been asked to say goodbye to has already left)
23. bzzzz (actually, the sound is a raspberry, but it’s as close as she can come to a bumblebee buzz)
24. car
25. cheese
26. da-da (there was confusion about this early on – it means not “daddy” but “music”; specifically, the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” as played by her musical butterfly; comes from imitating Mama Dog or Halmonie as they hummed along to the tune – “da da, da da da da da….”)
27. daddy
28. dirty
29. doggie
30. door
31. drawer (hard to hear the difference between “door” and “drawer,” but she uses them appropriately)
32. ducky
33. ee-ee-ee (the sound Daddy taught her is made by monkeys or, as Baby Dog pointed out, the fake President)
34. elbow
35. eyes (applied indiscriminately to refer both to eyes and ears)
36. ha ha (usually spoken after hearing the word “fun” or “funny”; also used spontaneously as a laugh when amused)
37. halmonie
38. hand
39. hat
40. hi
41. hide
42. home
43. hoo (as in “what does the owl say?”)
44. hop (usually used to refer to the book “Hop on Pop”)
45. hot
46. house
47. juice (just started saying that today)
48. keys
49. knees
50. lemons
51. maa (according to “The Very Busy Spider,” that’s what goats say)
52. mail
53. map
54. melon (exclusively used to mean “watermelon”)
55. meow
56. mess
57. monkey
58. moo
59. moon
60. moose
61. mummy
62. neigh
63. night-night
64. no
65. nose
66. num num or nummy
67. out
68. pee
69. shhhhh
70. shoes
71. snacky
72. spoon
73. stay (when Daddy makes Doggy Dog lie down in the bedroom to get him out from underfoot at dinner time, he sternly says “Lie down!” at which point Baby Dog gleefully exclaims “Stay!” because she knows that’s what’s coming next; then she repeats it throughout dinner)
74. sun
75. teeth
76. there
77. this
78. toes
79. towel
80. tree
81. tweet
82. uh-oh! (usually spoken after throwing something to the floor from the high chair; still hasn’t match Baby Pirate’s record of saying “uh-oh!” before throwing something to the floor from the high chair)
83. up
84. whale
85. woof
86. yay
87. yes
88. zizzuzz (meaning Ziggety Zug, the name Mama Dog gave to Baby Dog’s beloved Uglydoll)
posted by PapaDogDuvalier | 9:07 PM
2 Comments:
I'm spilling over with pride!
Proud you should be, but you also need a nap after typing up that list! Whew!
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