Today was a Nap Day for Ana.

[conuly]

She could've done without one, but since we were home anyway I just put her to bed when her sister went.

Evangeline always wakes up first, so in the middle-time, we played peek-a-boo on Jenn's bed. I'd hide, the baby would "find" me (not very hard, I just pulled the covers over my head), babble a bit, and then encourage me to hide again.

Then I realized what the baby was babbling, it was so loud and clear - "THERE YOU ARE!" (Dehyuarrr!)

Which she said again when Ana walked into the room, followed quickly by "ANA!!!!!"

That got me thinking - this kid doesn't actually babble very much. Hardly at all that I hear, in fact. So now I'm starting to suspect that, in fact, this kid never just "babbles" other than a very few times when we're playing the repeating game (which she's less and less interested in playing nowadays) - every utterance, no matter how nonsensical, is an honest effort at communication and speech.

And she's got what I consider to be quite a lot of words that I recognize, because she uses them consistently at certain moments:

Da for down, whenever she sits down, falls down, or is put down.
Uh-ah for uh-oh whenever she drops something or sees that there's a ton of stuff she's dropped sitting in the tub
Ah for "open the mouth"
Ma-ma-MA for "I want some/gimme more" (She doesn't use it otherwise, not even crying anymore)
Ana! or ADA! whenever she sees her sister, or her sister ups and leaves.
And now "Deh-ya-arr" for "Hey, look, there was somebody under that blanket!"

And I occasionally get a hi or a bye out of her as well. That's not counting her tiny vocabulary of signs (tickle, milk/food, all done, more, waving/clapping/high-fiving) either. That's a *lot*.

Of course, I could be reading a lot more into this sort of thing, but when she only ever goes "da" when she does, in fact, flop down... one starts to wonder.

Comments

[peaseblossom03.livejournal.com]

I was just reminded of when my oldest niece was about a year old give or take, how when she or someone else sneezed she would giggle and then say "Aboojoo!" We figure she somehow mishmashed "Bless you" and "Apple Juice", or at least that's the best theory we had.

[gingembre.livejournal.com]

Or could she have been imitating the sneeze itself? *Atchooo!*? :-)

[peaseblossom03.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that's possible too!