Vocabulary

For a while there, I was a little concerned about whether our kids were a little less verbal than some of their peers. Now that they’re eighteen months old, I thought I’d try to make a list of all of the words they can say. (As it happened, I mentioned the idea to Rachel, and she made a list, but I contributed to it.) Looking at the list, I’m no longer particularly worried.

This post, then, will serve as a little bit of history for later in life, when they won’t shut up.

Here’s all of the words the twins can say that we could think of, with the proper pronunciation in toddler dialect in parentheses. (If only one of them has a word, I tried to mark that as well.)

People

• Mama (occasionally “mommy”)
• Daddy
• Eloise (“Ellie” or “Alwee” or “Owie”)
• Julian (“Gi-gee” or “Doo-dee”)
• Grandpa (“Ba-pa”)
• Wapsy (“Wa-pee”)
• Grammy (“Ba-bee”)
• Several friends from school, including Avery (“A-wee”), Hannah (“Na-na”), and Apollo (“Uh-pah”)

Colors

• red (“ya”)
• yellow
• green (“dee”)
• blue
• purple (“puh-puh”)
• pink (“pee”)
• brown [J] (“bwow”)
• black (“bla”)
• white (“wha”)

Body parts

• nose (“no”)
• eye
• ear (“ee”)
• elbow (“ow-boh”)
• toe (“doh”)
• knee
• neck (“neh”)
• back (“ba”)
• leg [J] (“leh”)

Food

• peas (“peeeeeeez”)
• broccoli (“buh-la-buh-lee”)
• apple/applesauce (“a-puh”)
• Mum-Mum
• snack (“na”)
• cheese (“deeee”)
• water (“wa-wa”)
• bar (cereal bar) (“ba”)
• noodles (“noo-noo”)
• cracker (“kuh kuh”)
• pasta [J] (“tas-pah”)
• blueberries (“boo-bwee”)

Miscellaneous nouns

• balloon (“buh-loo” or “boo”)
• baboon (“ba-boo”)
• blocks (“blaaaaaaaaaah”)
• book (“buh”)
• bottle (“ba-ba”)
• bubble (“buh-buh”)
• bowl (“bo”)
• spoon (“suh-boo”)
• tree (“dwee”)
• flower (“fuh-vuh”)
• park (“pah”)
• outside (“ow-ee” [E] or “uh-tzuh” [J])
• window (E) (“wi-woh”)
• bus [E] (“buh”)
• truck [J] (“dwah”)
• moon (“moo”)
• star (J) (“daw”)
• baby
• ball (“baaaa”)
• barn (“ba”)
• iPod (“a-puh”)
• poop (“a-pu”)
• shoe [E] (“doo”)
• giraffe [J] (“doo-wah”)
• beep beep (“bee bee”)
• keys (“dee”)

Animals

• kitty/meow (“diddy”/”mow”)
• bird/tweet tweet (“buh”/”dzee dzee” or “tuh-wee”)
• woof woof (“wuh wuh”)
• quack quack (“kuh kuh”)
• the sound a monkey makes (“oo-oo”)
• neigh
• moo
• baa

Miscellaneous verbs and prepositions

• eat (“ee”)
• walk (“waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”)
• up
• down (“dow”)
• trade [J] (“doo-way”)
• rock (“wa”)
• ride [E] (“waaiiii”)
• sleeping [E] (“pee-pee”)

Miscellaneous miscellany

• yes (“yeah”)
• no (“no no”)
• hi
• bye
• please (“buh-lee” [J], “pee” [E])
• more (“muh”)
• all done (“ah dah”)
• uh-oh!
• oh no!
• me
• whee!
• choo choo (“doo doo”)

It’s worth noting that these are just the words they can say. They understand much, much more, so stay on your toes.

Filed under Milestones | Tags: eloise, julian, talking, verbal | Comments (7)

Month 18

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Mama’s Got a Brand New iPhone

And that iPhone takes video that can be uploaded straight to YouTube! I am semi-addicted.

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Eloise’s First Haircut

As impressive and fabulous as Eloise is by almost any measure, she has never been an overachiever in the hair department. Yet her mullet was growing completely out of control, even by mullet standards, and we decided that a little trim would, at the very least, not hurt. Her Aunt Rachel and I took her to Kidz Adventure Cuts in Seekonk for the procedure.

At first I almost dared to be pleasantly surprised by how well she was handling it…

…but quickly began to get a sense that my optimism would prove unfounded.

There’s the Eloise I know and love!

(Hmm, looking at this picture I’m thinking we should have double-teamed her with a dentist on the other side.)

In the end they only charged me for the equivalent of a bangs trim, since they only cleaned up the back. (When I brought her in, the “stylist” incredulously burst out, “What are you going to cut, Mom???” I explained that I wanted it tidied up to all one length in the back, she exclaimed with an emotion I would describe as just shy of horror: “But if you do that she’ll look like a BOY!”

Needless to say we went ahead with it, and while the result will not exactly win her a job as the Pantene poster girl, it does look a bit less unruly.

By the way, Julian got his first haircut back in December (and his second on the same day as Eloise’s first). Let’s just say that his handling of the trauma didn’t do anything to make Eloise look bad.

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What Happened?

Matt and I did not intend to allow sparveys.com to grow dormant, but it just seemed to happen. We were talking tonight about how we can’t possibly be more tired now than we were during the first year, so why is it that we could find time and energy then but we can’t now? Part of it is that the newness of being a family of four has worn off a bit, and with it the compulsion to blog. Another part is that the longer we have gone without posting, the more we’ve felt that to start up again we must create some sort of epic post that sums up all of the last 4-5 months in a way that is funny, insightful, and poignant.

Well, that’s not going to happen, so I’m just going to launch in again with a minor post and hope that I can manage to do that sort of thing with moderate regularity. I hope that those who are interested in such occasional updates will still check in every so often!

Just over a year ago Matt and I took the twins to the playground for the first time. It was a day that stands out in my memory as a particularly enjoyable one during the rough early months. It is also astounding to us that it was just a year ago — it feels like an eternity has passed. And who can blame us for feeling that way, when you look at how far Julian and Eloise have come in that time.

Then:

Now:

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Filed under Cuteness | Tags: playground, playing, sliding, video | Comments (3)