What Would You Say?

Jeffrey has come into the world of speech with all engines on full. He’s quite a noisy little boy, telling us all about whatever activity he’s engaged in. Whether he’s reading us a story (Goodnight….moooooon) or taking his “buh-boat” on an adventure, he’s got a commentary on it. I thought for the sake of historical record, I’d make a blog entry detailing Jeffrey’s vocabulary. In foreign languages, people’s fluency is often graded in three areas: how well you can speak, how well you can write and how well you can understand. Since Jeffrey’s handwriting is not coming as quickly as his other skills, I’ve chosen three other categories: Words other people can understand; Words Mom & Dad understand, but no other sane person would; and finally Words he understands but refuses to repeat.

Words Other People Understand (Generally in order of appearance)

• Uh oh
• Kitty (kee-cat)
• Car (cah)
• Boat (buh-boat)
• Tree (tee)
• Ball (bahhhhl)
• Banana (nana)
• Mama
• Dada
• Go! (gogo)
• Eat (eee) *
• All done (ahhhdon) *
• More *
• Book (bah)
• Thank You (Tan koo)*
• Cookie
• Cracker
• Baby
• Bubble
• Train (choo choo)
• Truck (truh)
• Dump Truck (duh truh)
• Cow sound (softly moo)
• Tiger sound (aaaahhhhh)
• Bird
• Frog sound (gutteral rararararar)
• Dog sound (wah! wah!)
• Duck
• Duck sound
• Owl sound (very soft whooo)
• School (cool)
• Fire truck sound (wow wow wow wow)
• Bus (buh -very similar to book)
• House (hooouuus)
• Nose
• Ears
• Eyes
• Mouth
• Feet
• Shoes
• Hat (ha)
• Hot (also sounds like Hot, Hat and Chattanooga)

Words Only Mom & Dad Understand

• Milk (muhma) *
• Help (hep) *
• Up
• Down
• Out (oww)

Words Jeffrey Understands

• Turn around
• Where is?
• Tongue
• Belly
• Chair
• On top
• Put in

Words Jeffrey Cannot Say

• Viscosity
• Histocompatibilty
• Republican
• Cryptography
• Onomatopoeia
• Ergonomic
• Stephen Colbert (he keeps pronouncing the “t”)

Items with an asterisk are words that Jeffrey can sign in addition to speak. This is one of the very nice benefits of RIT’s Early Childhood Development Center (aka Margaret’s House).

And now Jeffrey, live and in person: PicasaWeb

Don’t forget to read to your children!

Song link: “What Would You Say?” by Dave Matthews Band

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