As you might expect by this point, Sam does pretty well with her speech most of the time. We can understand her, at any rate. Occasionally, though, she’ll pronounce something in a way that completely baffles us, and now that she thinks she knows how to spell it just gets all the more confusing. The other day we were driving in the car and she pipes up, “Daddy! I saw a skwarull!”
“A what?”
“A skwarull!”
“A school?”
“No, a skwarull.”
“A floor?”
“NO! A SKWARULL!” And then she spelled it out, “S-P-O-O-G. Skwarull!”
“You saw a spoog? What’s a spoog?”
“No, don’t say that! Not a spoog! A SKWARULL! He climbs trees and eats nuts!”
“Oooooohhh. A squirrel.”
“That’s what I SAID.” This said in a tone that suggests I am Chief Admiral Moron of the Nincompoop Brigade.
“Okay, I understand now.”
Several minutes later: “Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“What’s a spoog?”
Mandy isn’t quite at the same level of shenanagains, but she has recently rediscovered the power of her voice. For a long time Ger and I considered ourselves fortunate that Mandy was exteremely even tempered and never cried without a clear reason. This is still mostly true, but she has in the last couple of weeks decided to harness the power of “YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRG!!”
It’s not crying per se, but a kind of sustained bellow that she’s getting more and more comfortable with. Dare to walk away in the middle of a feeding? YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRG!! Fail to quickly retrieve a toy that she just ignanimously swept to the floor? YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRG!! Just standing there? YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRG!!
Other than that, though, you can tell that Mandy really wants to start talking. She’s making all kinds of babbling sounds, and she has Mama and Daddy down pat, plus there’s this kind of unintelligible sputtering that I think is supposed to be “Sammy.” The two of them are interacting more every day, what with Sam constantly wanting to give Mandy hugs and retrieve things that she repeatedly throws to the floor. Mandy has started to pay attention to Sam, too, as evidenced by how she erupts into glee spasms when Sam wanders into the bedroom every morning. I’m hoping that soon they can pretty much just take care of each other and I can get out there and mow the lawn.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=spoog
Let’s hope Sam didn’t try to Google it!
Where are my photos?????
Megan: I always thought that had an “e” on the end…
Shawn: Oops, fixed. They block this site at work now, so I can’t even see it during the day. Guess I should really check it more closely before I post and run in the morning.
Cracking up over the fact that Sam spelled “skawrull” for you. Kids do tend to keep one entertained, don’t they?
i mailed your birthday present and some things
for the girls . so be on the look out for them. hope
you had a good b. day.
mom