Last night, I take my 5 1/2 month old daughter up to the nursery to get her ready for a feeding. I put her on the changing table and she looks up at me with the big blue eyes and says “Da da da”. My daughter is a genius - she can talk (a bit) at 5 1/2 months this is great.
Then my wife comes up and gets ready to breastfeed. As I lay my daughter on my wife’s lap, my daughter turns towards my wife’s breast and says “Da da da”.
Oh well, guess she isn’t getting a full scholarship to Harvard quite yet.
Aaron’s been babbling since he was about 2 months old. The only problem is, he won’t stop! Which is fine, because he’s usually not loud, but once in a while, he’ll let out a screech Just Because He Can. I’m not sure my eardrums are intact anymore.
Congrats on your daughter’s new communication skills.
Prior to last night, the babbling has always been jibberish - don’t you love walking by the nursery and hearing him talk to himself? I just love that (well, with my daughter - not Aaron since I don’t know Aaron).
Aaron apparently has heated arguments with himself. His babbling has speech-like cadence to it now, and unless you really listen closely, you’d swear he was arguing.
Didn’t some comedian make the observation that we get all excited when our kids start to walk and talk, then we spend the next 15 years trying to get them to sit down and shut up?
Of all the developmental stuff, I enjoyed observing as my daughter’s language skills increased. Communication has always interested me, and watching its evolution up close and personal was a real joy. For example, she used to pronounce penguin as “pink one” - took me a little while to figure out she was asking for the Opus stuffed toy and not something pink.
What I found equally interesting was how difficult it was to understand other children. My kid and another girl were in daycare together from the crib thru toddling years. We became friends with the other girl’s family and socialized a lot together. I always had a hard time understanding the other little girl, although, naturally, her mother didn’t. I noticed the same with my niece and nephew when they were pre-school ages. No real point here - just sharing an observation.
Ours is saying da da and ma ma and muh-muh-muh-muhmuhmuhmuh(said to the breast just before latching on).
We’re raising her multi-lingual, I speak only English to her, my wife only Czech. She understands quite a lot we’ve found, we even test her. At 9 months we’d ask “Kde je rybicky?”/“Where are the fish?” and she would point at our aquarium for both. Sorta neat. Now she points out a bunch of stuff around the room when we ask her, in both languages.
Of course she is smarter than I think - she is brilliant.
What is a Hannah Hoch print? I guess Hannah Hoch is an artist, right?
FairyChatMom, I’m looking forward to telling her to sit down and shut up (I think it was George Carlin). I remember some of the words my sister used (“nugey” was “cotton balls”, “chung” was “thumb”, and “bee-you” was “veal”). I can’t wait.
Tomcat, I like the multi-lingual idea. I guess my wife and I can teach her English and SAS coding. Second thought, nah.
You failed to tell us, did you win? Or did she say “Ma ma” first? Around my house, I skewed the kid, I’d call mommy by her full name, maiden name, “mother”, “Maternal unit”, “Primary female rearing device” anything I could think of. I was always “Da-da”.
Man, I just adore kids that reach the discovery of authentic reality through the abolition of traditional culture and aesthetic forms… and the poop face - I just love the poop face.
Our two year old is in the parrot phase. Of course, this became an inconvienience when I said “Goddammit” within his earshot. He got this look of concentration on his face as he let the word roll off his tongue as if it were a new car on a test drive. “Goddammit” “Gooooddammmmmit” “God” “Goddammit” By this time my wife was giving me the look of death and my head was about to explode from the supressed laughter. We all know what happens if you laugh at them when they are doing something you don’t want them to do.
Hey at least it’s a step in the right direction. My twin daughters are 3 months and I think I taught one of them to say Hi, but I’m not totally sure. While I’m saying hi a bunch of times she’ll look up at me all excited and smile and start kicking and move her mouth like she wants to say it but it just won’t come out or it will be something like “how”. Then I’ll sit down and 15 seconds later I’ll hear “Hieee”.
The other one babbles a lot and does this thing where she’ll give me this sort of crooked smile and raise one eyebrow. It just kills me.
Speaking of watching your language, at the risk of repeating a story I think I’ve told here before:
My niece was about 2, sitting in her car seat as my sister drove someplace. Niece was trying to get her sunglasses to rest atop her head and not having much luck. In a fit of pique, she pulled them off, threw them to the floorboard, and said “F*ck it!” My sister nearly died trying not to laugh. She also learned to watch her mouth.
My oldest son was about two when he uttered the phrase “Godfuckingdamnit” to my mother in law. Of course, that phrase was commonly associated with me. MIL was cool with it, calmly telling him that it was a bad word to use, but my wife was definitely shooting me “kill husband” stares…
“Da da” is a very potent word in our home, one with many meanings depending upon how she says it…
Said with no emphasis on either syllable and both syllables being short, it means me. “da-da.”
Said with the accent and a higher pitch on the first (short) syllable and a drop in emphasis and pitch on the second long syllable (often accompanied by pointing) it means both “look at that” and “Barney!” (this is by far the most common variant). “DAH-daaaaaa.”
Said with both first and second syllable accented and quick means “dogs”, usually the Scotty. “DAH-DAH!”
Said with a de-emphasized first syllable and a sharp accented second syllable means “Spongebob.” “da-DAH!”
Somehow Daddy, the dogs, Spongebob and Barney are all related in my little girls mind… and I’ll likely never figure out why.
She learned to say “baby” the other day, much to her mothers and my relief.
She’s probably a little behind in speech, but her babble is very complex and she understands the flow of conversation as she will “speak” to us… she even speaks on the phone, pausing to let the other person talk and then responding with what she wants to say. It is SO PRECIOUS!!!
She also knows plenty of words, shapes, colors, etc… she just doesn’t say them yet.
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