Baby-O Talk

Baby O started saying words like Mama, Papa, Mum-mum, Nen-nen since she was about nine months old. At 14+ months now, she is in a different phase of life yet again as her vocabulary swells. Nowadays, if something drops on the floor, she’ll go ‘ak, oh!’ in a very deliberate manner which makes me smile all the time.

Her favourite words are probably:
‘More!’ - She says this after every single song playing on the CD and when she is ready for the next spoon of food.

‘MmOi’ (Don’t Want in Cantonese) - This word came naturally to her as we don’t usually use much Cantonese around her! Nowadays, if you ask if she wants something, she’ll either respond ‘MmOi’ or nod. Makes life a lot easier though she doesn’t always mean what she says!

‘Aik!’(Lights) - She’ll shout excitedly ‘Aik!’ when we come to a stop at every single set of traffic light. And she expects us to respond to her excitedly too! Otherwise, she’ll keep harping ‘Aik!’, ‘Aik!’, ‘Aik!’ till she gets a respond!

‘Aahh!’ (Water) - Previously, water was ‘Ter’. After observing how her gung-gung (grandpa) drinks his water and goes ‘Aaahhh!’ after that, she has ‘Aahh!’ down now as water, or anything liquid including washing liquid! Yikes!!!

‘Pa-pau’ (I want to be carried in Mandarin) - She says this while clapping her hands and then opening her arms up to be carried.

‘Mou-more’ (No More) - Said while shaking her hand to indicate that something is not there or has finished.

‘Ma-men’ (Amen) - This is one of my favourite! Said after we finish saying grace before our meals while clasping her hands and with opened, eager eyes.

‘Nen-nen’ (Breastmilk) - This is probably the mother of all words! Especially when she hasn’t been well lately and relied a lot on it for comfort. If she gets a cent for everytime she mentions this word, her university fees would have all been paid for!

‘Muck!’ (Milk) - Another one of my favourites! Because of how it sounds coming from her. Regardless whether it's in a cup or its powdery form in a container.

She can also fill in the blanks to songs and words in her books which amazes me at times. I will deliberately blank out a word at the end of a sentence and Baby O usually surprises me when she fills it up with a word that sounds like the omitted word!

Other than that, she is always grabbing her toy phone or our mobile phones and goes ‘Pa-po’ (Grandma in Cantonese) or ‘Ou’ (Hello), before continuing her pretend chat which goes something like this ‘Ou, oh... aau,.. oh.. ou...’

On the baby sign front, I wonder if it has benefited us at times. She started saying most words that she has been taught to sign since she has been more vocal. So she has never really used the signs. However, there were occasions when she did sign to communicate to us like when she wanted to tell us there were fishes in an aquarium or pants when she sees a dog and recently ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ when prompted. I feel that it was more through communicating to her all the time since she was a baby, telling her things from a mundane house chore to our whole life story and by repeating the words and songs that she has picked up these words. Wonder what other moms out there have to say about baby signs?