Confession #14: Mispronunciation Communication

In the grocery store the other day, Arden pointed to a bag of tea biscuit cookies with a very proud look on her face and said "F$&@!". That's right, the one that rhymes with stuck.

I take complete responsibility for this. I always encourage her to talk and try my darnedest to figure out what she's trying to say. It's so fun to communicate with her like this and I won't pretend the mispronunciations aren't hilarious.

The tea biscuit incident occurred because she thought they were crackers and f$&@ is how she says cracker. Please don't ask me why. A linguist would know...  Too many hard sounds and f$&@ is the best she can do. It's pretty impressive how babies will try to say words even if there's no chance they'll be able to really say it. For instance: helicopter is "pop!", computer is "tuter" and avocado is just plain "cado".

One of Arden’s playmates has the exact same explicative way of saying fire truck. At least that's the right idea. Does anyone remember that scene from Backdraft... I mean, hot.

Being able to understand Arden is so important to me.  I think all moms are able to understand about 95% of what their kids "say" to them even before they can speak. That's why I was so frustrated when I could not figure out a sign that Arden was doing. A little while back we were in the bath singing songs and she started to pump her fists together as if she was saying she wanted to fight me but that's not what she meant. She was trying to tell me a song that she wanted me to sing and I could not figure it out. She kept pumping her fists together shaking her head no, no to every song title I offered up. It drove me crazy!  As time went by, she kept trying that sign to see if I'd figured it out. She is very persistent. Well, one day, while we were watching a bit of Aladdin together, she started to pump her fists together during the song "One Jump" which is a song where Aladdin is being chased by guards through the streets of Agrabah.  It's a fight/chase scene that I now have the pleasure of singing and reenacting to her multiple times daily.  Thank you Alan Menken.

As I wrote the first part of this posting about a week ago Arden’s ability to pronounce multi-syllable words has increased.  So, if you come over for a visit and she calls you a f$&@er, you’ll know she’s just hungry.

I'd love to hear about your own trials of communication!  Please feel free to comment and share.