Friday, October 15, 2010

If it walks like a duck…

Baby T is officially a toddler now, and running around the place like crazy. He’s uncontainable - he can get into or out of anything. Seriously. Anything. Though, his favorite game is still playing in the toilet. Especially since he learned how to flush it. Coincidentally, The Man’s bluetooth has gone missing…

Anyway, in addition to walking/running/flushing, he’s starting to talk a lot lately. He’s always been a babbler, but we can actually distinguish one babble from another now. The Man bought him the Your Baby Can Read system, and, while Baby T’s not actually up to proofreading my books for me yet (though, I’m hopeful) he is saying most of the words on the video. He says, “gorilla”, “clap”, “dog”, “duck”, “Uh oh” (he uses that one a lot), and “Dada.” Wanna know the one word he won’t say? “Mama.” He used to say it. It was one of his first words, usually wailed at top volume when he was hungry/tired/hurt. Now, all I hear is Dada. All day long - Dada. He's completely forgotten the Mama.  So, yesterday, I sat the boy down for a serious talk.

Me: Can you say, “mama?”
Baby T: Dada.
Me: Ma-ma. (with very slow annunciation)
Baby T: Dada.
Me: No, make a “MMMMMM” sound. Mmmmmama.
Baby T: Dada.
Me: I’ll give you a cookie if you say, “mama.”
Baby T: Dada.
Me: Can’t you say anything else?
Baby T: Duck. Quack, quack!

Today, every time I ask him where mama is, he points at me and says, “quack.” Tell me this phase is a short one...


~Trigger (and duck) Happy Halliday

9 comments:

Misha Gerrick said...

lol shame! I think the first thing I said was... "Look at the moo's."

I.e. look at the cow.

My brother's first words were in a language that only my Grandmother understands - and she wasn't there at the time.

I did get round to saying Mamma though... :-)

Robin Kaye said...

Don't worry, your adorable baby will say Mama soon. It will eventually be replaced by Mom, then by a whiney Mom, which will morph into Mo-om along with a teen-aged eye roll.

I have three kids, ages 13 - 17 who are some of the coolest people I know. All these stages have still caused me to wonder why I encouraged them to speak.

krisgils33 said...

going to have to agree...the phase of WANTING them to talk is VERY short lived. There will be many, many, many future occasions where you will doubt the wisdom in providing any encouragement at all in the "talking" category!!!

We had moved to Miami when my daughter was 1 and she went to an all Spanish speaking daycare. It was a wonderful daycare, but she really learned Spanish before English. Which might be a good thing....if I knew any Spanish!! It was tough figuring out what she was saying and I constantly had to ask my bilingual friends, but now she speaks both (although she hates to speak Spanish...go figure!!).

Unknown said...

Our first son said 'Dada' early on, but took months to finally say 'Mama' when he wanted my wife.
Second kiddo didn't take as long, but he does call me 'mama' and my wife 'dada' from time to time. It passes.

Christie Craig said...

Gemma,

When I ask my nineteen-month-old granddaughter to give me kiss, she runs to her granddaddy and kisses him. I think they are playing us. LOL.

He's beautiful.

CC

Diane Kelly said...

Be thrilled your son knows you exist. My 15-year-old son only acknowledges my existence when he's hungry. You might be "duck", but I'm "We got anything good to eat?" : )

Gemma Halliday said...

Thanks for the reassurance, everyone!

Too funny about the Spanish speaking toddler. Translating baby babble is hard enough - I can only imagine baby babble in another language!

Lol, Diane! I can see that happening soon with my 10 year old. He rarely peeks his head out of his room (a.k.a the video game cave), and when he does, food is usually involved. ;)

~Gemma

Unknown said...

ROFL, that's funny. And he's so cute!

I don't have children, but I have heard they go through stages with their Mama and Dada words. And I'm pretty sure they know how to tease when they're very young, so chances are that's what he's doing! He'll be saying Mama again before long!

Dru said...

He is adorable and once he starts saying "mama" you'll want him to go back to saying "dada."