Not having enough years of exposure to language for homophones to have become old hat, Esther notices correlations between words that don't occur to most adults. It took me days to figure out why she was gazing at her training pants and saying, "Choo choo" (Get it? TRAINing pants?) But in that case, she was simply recognizing that the two words sounded the same; I don't think it was a deliberate pun. Fast-forward a couple of months. For a while during the summer, Esther was obsessed with blowing bubbles, asking to blow bubbles several times a day. Earlier this month, when Grandma Corrigan was visiting us, she bought Esther a stuffed otter named "Bubbles." The other day when I got Esther up from her nap, she blew on Bubbles' fur, looked at me with a big grin, and said, "I blow bubbles!" As far as I know, that is her first pun!
Sometimes when Esther is getting into something that is not explicitly forbidden, but that I really don't want her to do, I'll tell her, "That's not very helpful." So one day not too long ago I was sitting on the couch looking at something when I heard a small voice remark, "That's not very helpful!" So I turned around, and sure enough, she was busily removing our DVDs from their shelves. On another occasion, she told me, "I not being very helpful."
Esther would happily carry her blankie around with her all day if we let her, but in general, blankie is made to stay in the crib. So usually at least once a day Esther will want to get into her crib and have a little snuggle time with blankie. The other day she communicated this need by announcing, "I sweeby! boing, boing, boing!" (with a jump on every boing). I thought, suuureyou're sleepy! She is also into imitating frogs lately. For no apparent reason she'll start hopping forward and saying, "Ribbit, hop, hop, hop."
Imagine the following scenario. I suggest, "How about some ice cream for dessert?" Esther responds, "I do, I do, I do!" The grammar is a little funky, but it makes sense. Well, as far as Esther is concerned, "I do, I do, I do" is a multi-purpose phrase. One evening we arrived at Grace Fellowship, and after recognizing the place, Esther exclaimed, arms and legs flailing in anticipation of her release from her carseat, "Here we are! I do, I do, I do!!"
Recently, Esther has been quoting a lot. I guess it's because we've been reading books with dialog in them. Some examples: (while looking at a picture of a dragon hugging a boy): "'Mmmm,' says dragon." (at the zoo): "'Come on!' says horses." (waiting for Mommy to unlock the door after a trip to the laundry room): "'Wait door open,' laundry basket says." I'm a little dubious about talking laundry baskets, but her intonation for quotes is perfect!
As a natural-born climber, Esther has a long-standing fascination with the stepladders that one sometimes finds in the aisles of stores. She has heard me say many times (as she made a beeline for the steps) , "Those are for employees. You're not an employee." Recently we were walking through Sears for our rainy-day recreation when we found an empty clothes rack on wheels that she wanted to push around. I informed her that it was for employees, so as she walked away she announced, "I not employee. I'm a baby."
Esther has begun to sing familiar songs (or snatches of them) on a regular basis. Not that you would necessarily know, when hearing her intone loudly in the back seat of the car, "Teetle teetle witty stah," what is going on. But if you are familiar with her pronunciation, and able to overlook the lack of recognizable melody, you may recognize that she is singing "Twinkle, twinkle, little star."
As a toddler, Esther naturally imitates what other people say around her. Sometimes the imitation is an immediate echo; other times it shows up in unexpected places. This can be unnerving: the other morning, Tim was nonplussed to hear her exclaim, "Gosh darn it!" when something fell off the table. Other times it's just funny, like when you explain something to her and she nods sagely and says, "That makes sense." We were also amused on our most recent trip to Grandma Pack's house, when Grandma offered a solution to some circumstance that Esther was concerned about and Esther responded brightly, "That'll work!"
Esther's Chinese vocabulary has increased a little as well. Lately, when I give her something, she's been exclaiming, "Xiexie Yeye!" (Thank-you Grandpa!). No doubt she learned the phrase from her "Nihao Kai-lan" DVD. I made a big dramatic production out of saying, "Wo bushi Yeye, wo shi Mama!" (I'm not Grandpa, I'm Mommy!), and I think she understands, but she thinks it's hilarious, so she continues to say, "Xiexie Yeye."
Esther's language skills in general are progressing. She has, of course, some quirks in grammar (and many still in pronunciation), but four plus word sentences are not unusual for her, and she occasionally comes out with sophisticated sentences like "My bib is in the living room." And the other day she correctly used a grammatical construction (I think it was "I don't either") that I remember being challenging for my college students in China! She is using a variety of pronouns, though not always correctly: when she spotted a little friend that she had been looking for on the playground, she said, "There's him!" And she has begun overgeneralizing: lately she's been going around declaring, "That's mines!" And she sometimes leaves out a verb. Helping verbs are particularly prone to omission (she says "I riding my scooter," not "I'm riding my scooter"), but sometimes there is no verb at all. The day after Tim's birthday, she went into the kitchen and found him cutting himself a piece of cake, whereupon she exclaimed, "I cake too!!" Occasionally her grammar gets creative, as when she abjured me recently, "No fall me down!" (i.e. don't drop me--I'm sure she was making an analogy with "pick me up").
I could probably think of more examples, but I've been working on this post for a while and it's time to get it posted!
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