That reminds me of how a couple was showing off their pre-verbal daughter’s signing skills. She would awkwardly make a sign for butterfly, giraffe, and other animals. The small snag is that her sound for dogs was panting. All the dogs she saw were ones being walked briskly, and they weren’t barking, but breathing a bit heavily.
My son referred to his pacifier as his “bi.” To this day we have no idea where he came up with that. I was in the process of weaning him from it when his sister went in the hospital and my mother gave him a gift: A stuffed monkey with a pacifier. Young Tiger took one look at it, cried, “Monkey Bi!” and plopped his own “bi” back in. It took me another month to wean him off the stupid thing. Gee, thanks, Ma.
When a friend of mine turned 3, she was so taken with being honored on her birthday that she made people sing it to her several times a day for weeks afterward. But to be fair, she also wanted to sing it for everyone else, too.
I was watching Empire Strikes Back with Little Case the other day - he likes the robots and spaceships, but applies remorseless 3 year old logic to the plot: Yoda was bad because he “stole Luke’s lunchbox” {remember him ransacking Luke’s belongings when he first crashes on Dagobah?}, which is a heinous sin to a toddler. I asked him whether Darth Vader was bad, and he replied “No”. Why not? “He didn’t steal Luke’s lunchbox”. Why didn’t he steal Luke’s lunchbox? Exasperated 3 year old glare that Daddy is so thick. “Because he doesn’t have a mouth, silly.” {And yes, he does call people “silly”, and is starting to pick up my habit of talking back to the TV news}.
Ooohh…remembered one. My nephew has always been a big truck fan. (If in doubt about a present, buy a truck.)
So, when he was about 3, we were sitting in the family room one day and he was playing with fire trucks of varying sizes. The grown-ups could hear him talking to and about the trucks, mentioning Mommy Trucks and Daddy Trucks and threatening the little trucks with timeouts. It was really hard not to burst out laughing.
My middle sister, when very little always said “lellow” for “yellow” too. Drove me nuts and no amount of correction ever worked.
My son, when very little could not say the words deck, truck or slug. Deck came out as “dick”, slug and truck came out as “fck". I arrived to pick him up for daycare and my daycare provider told me my son kept saying we had to kill the "fcks” on the “dick”. She didn’t know what he was saying and was mightily shocked at the words, until…my daughter who is three years older translated for my son.
I think they just about all love trucks. My brother bought a brand new F-150 when my nephew was two, and he was all about the truck, believe me. Only, he coiuldn’t pronounce the word, so he’d always be talking about “Daddy’s duck”.
This one has to be quoted: we’ve just finished reading a book on Reptiles and Amphibians {OK, I read it and endeavour to explain what’s going on, he looks at the pictures, and I get him to spell out the F.R.O.G and T.O.A.D captions}. We sat down and watched Toy Story 2 this morning - following which, he ran around the house happily shouting “To amphibians and beyond!”
My friend’s little boy’s first word was “car”. He loves his toy cars, and everything in his room is car-themed.
But, after learning that wonderful first word, he applied it to everything that could move under its own power. Buses and trucks were cars. Bikes were cars. But what cracked me up is when he chased the cat around the room yelling “car! car!” I think they call the cat Car-car now. It’s just easier.