Thursday, July 13, 2006
Wordy
Well, we're sitting here at almost 11 months and I thought I'd take a moment to talk about Julia's verbal skills.
The girl talks up a storm. Words she says:
Mama
doggie
cat
hi
no
yes
ball
night-night
Grandpa
Grandma
Katie
num-num
Thank you (I'm counting this as one word, because I don't think she knows that it's a phrase)
Ducky
Ann (her caregiver's name)
Phrases that she uses:
Hi Mama
Hi Julia (we have no idea why she's saying this, but it's pretty clear)
No Doggie
It's that last one that cracks me up. Like they listen to her. It wasn't long ago that she didn't care if they took her crackers. Now she hides her food when they're around.
When we were camping she was sitting on her blanket, the dogs were pacing nearby -- restless because of the cooking food. I took her a tiny piece of bacon. When I handed it to her she told me Thank You (SO CUTE! that's the first time I heard her say it) and then very subtly hid it behind her back so Oliver wouldn't notice it. He didn't, and she got to eat it without being bothered, but not because of her hiding it. She's not that good! He didn't notice it because he was too busy begging from someone else. It's just funny that she's learned to be wary of them with food.
Hey! We try to make sure the dogs don't steal her food. But they're sneaky! Good thing they're gentle when they take food away from her...
Julia babbles all day long. She creates long strings of sounds that are inflected like sentences. We can hear questions and answers in her babbling. It's as if she's speaking another language entirely and has figured out that we will never learn her language, so she'll learn ours. It's cute. She'll say a whole request for something in her language. And then, painstakingly enunciate what she wants in ours. Too cute!
ETA: All day long yesterday Julia kept saying “Hi Julia” to everyone who came in the room. Over and over. Hi Julia. To her toys. To her mommies. To herself. We’re beginning to wonder if she doesn’t realize that Julia is her name. Maybe she thinks it means “person”. Weird. It sounds really cute, though.