It’s hard to explain the huge leap that Oona has taken with language. It seems like she knows hundreds of words, and can communicate nearly anything she wants. And the way she says things so damned cute!! All the animal sounds, pronunciations… Here are a few phrases:
- Moe tata? Mo tata, peas (More cracker, please)
- Bapple (waffle). Ex (eggs). Jews (Juice). A-Wawddahs (water)
- Foon (spoon). Fock (fork).
- Don-wantit… Don-wantit… (If you’re trying to get her to eat something)
- A Sawwwwh (Her yellow dinosaur)
- Lello. Puhpul. Gree. Boo. (Colors)
- One. Twoooo. Tree. Fo-wah. sIX. Sewen. Et. Nine. Den. (Note the omission of five, which she always forgets)
- A-B-Scees
- Awwt (art)
- Nena. Da-daddy. Pop-ax.
- Bye’ies (berry) Sye-i-ie (strawberry).
- Hosie (horsie). Effent (elephant). Honey (hyena). Lillah (gorilla). Doe-gie (doggie). Chich-chen (chicken). MOEse (mouse).
- Fix (pacifier)
- Bap (bat). Punkin (pumpkin).
- Emmo (Elmo – for a while there she was calling him “Eh-Mama” and then just “Mama”. So every time she’d see an Elmo book she’d point at him and say “Mama”. It became this running gag where I’d roll my eyes at her and laugh and say “No, *I’M* Mama!! ” So cute!!!)
The other day I was trying to remember what her first word was and I blanked for a minute… Since I finally remembered, I want to write it down now… The first word she really said was Quack. She was imitating a stuffed duck which quacked “quack-quackquackquackquackquackquackquack” and she would say “ya-ya-ya-ya-ya”. Her first real English word was “That”, and she’d walk around pointing to everything in site saying “That. That.”