Roecabulary

Monroe has rapidly expanded her communication skills in the past few weeks. Here is a sketch of her adorable little vocabulary:

The star players are "ma ma" and "da da" which she pronounces perfectly, uses only in the appropriate contexts to refer to the correct person, and uses very consistently. For instance, she smiles and says "Da Da" when she hears Eben's footsteps in the evening. And two weeks ago when I tried to sleep in on a Saturday morning while Eben watched the baby, I awoke to the adorable sound of "Ma Ma, ma ma?" accompanied by the even more adorable sound of a tiny fist knocking politely on my bedroom door.

Her second string is a collection of onomatopoeias that, while not technically conventional words, function as communication for her. She barks when she sees dogs, meows for cats, and quacks for ducks. I don't really know where any of this came from, as we have never really emphasized animal noises--she's always led the way! She also makes a little bit of a vroom vroom sound for cars, and even has an "eee eee" sound for monkeys (animals which she has only seen in her picture books so far, which leads me to believe that her babysitter must have taught her that one.)

The newest member of the team is her word for O-shaped cereal (like Cheerios). She says "Oooafs." It is REALLY cute because she shapes her mouth into a perfect little pink O at the beginning of the word.

If those are her credited players, then nodding yes and no are like... like... dang it, why did I start this off with a sport analogy? I don't know anything about team sports. I really should have picked a metaphor I could follow through on. Oh well. What I am trying to say is that her ability to nod yes and shake her head no may not get credit as words (since there is no sound involved) but they are totally the most useful communications she can make. Understanding what she wants is FANTASTIC after 6 months or so of trial and error baby-pleasing. Even when we can't or won't give her what she wants, it's great to KNOW what she's after so we can explain, distract, or whatever the situation calls for.

Of course these are just the sounds and signs she can produce for herself. Let me give you a bit of a flavor for her ability to respond to language. About two weeks ago, she suddenly knew where her feet were. She'd point them out whenever she heard the word, even if someone was talking about feet in some other context. She went around pointing out her feed for about a week, and then she experienced a fantastic explosion in her body-awareness and seemed, overnight, to suddenly be able to point out her hair, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, hands, and bellybutton. ADORABLE!!! She can also respond to little requests. For instance, in the mornings before work while we unload the dishwasher, Eben gives her the coffee cups one by one and says "take this to the bar." The bar (where I keep the cappuccino machine) is all the way across the living room behind the couch. I suppose she knows where the bar is because she says goodnight to it every night as we say goodnight each area of the house and turn off each light. Anyway, when he hands her a mug and says, "take this to the bar Monroe" she toddles off through the house, carefully holding the mug. She can't open the cabinet where they are kept, so she just puts them in the floor right by the bar. Hilarious.

I didn't expect to be getting work out of her so young. Hopefully pretty soon we'll have her changing her own diapers.