Suffering From Vocabularia

Deciphering a baby's limited vocabulary is like walking through a syllabic mine field. Miss what she's trying to communicate to you and there goes your evening. Take my daughter for instance…

Early on, mommy's breasts were called nanas. But so was a banana. She then switched her word for mommy's breasts to babah. But babah was also her word for bottle. So bottle became baboom if she wanted milk, deuce if she wanted apple juice, and wawa if she wanted water. She then started calling her pajamas nannie. But that word was very close to her word for bananas (nana, which used to be her word for breasts). So nannie became her word for both pajamas AND banana and, more recently, her Aunty Jenna or my Mother. Nana was dropped altogether. She then discovered her knees and called them by their God-given name from the get go, which was a relief. But then her jeans came in to the picture and she decided that knees sounded good for jeans too. Somehow the concept of denim was lost on her and her understanding of jeans morphed into any kind of clothing she may wear. Knees is now her word for knees, jeans, shirts, shorts, pants and pajamas (although, she still calls them nannies on occasion when not referring to a banana). Dah is her word for bath, ball and/or hat. Bahbee is puppy and, of course, Barbie. But bahbee could also mean our stepdaughter's puppy at her Dad's house, Sammy - who is also affectionately referred to as Wammy. Anything with a hard "k" (taco, back pack, cracker, etc.) became the sound of clearing a phlegm ball from her throat. Sometimes we don't know if she's sick, wants a Cheez-It or sees an airplane with that one. A towel is meemo, not to be confused with melmo, which is Elmo, or beepo, which is radio. About the only thing she keeps consistent is her word for diaper, which is dipo. But she's having a hard time keeping them on these days so it will most likely turn in to time out. Luckily, we still have dadoo to catch everything else she doesn't have a word for yet. And she has no problem repeating it until you come up with a suitable term for whatever it is she's pointing at. [Deep breath…]

Tread lightly, fellas, and pay attention to your kid.  We may just get through this yet.