The Evolution of Speech

My daughter amazes me every day with something she says. It seems like just yesterday she was saying her first real sentence and now she uses them constantly. She doesn't quite have proper sentence structure down, but in the meantime it's quite entertaining to me. I love hearing her ask me, "Mommy help you, me?" which is translated into "Mommy, will you help me?" She's steadily getting better at this and quite frankly it makes me a little sad. I was once chided by a dear woman who said that I shouldn't be sad that my daughter is growing up because she's hitting the milestones she needs to and that's a true blessing from God. And that I should think about all those mothers out there whose children aren't hitting those milestones. Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted every time she learns something new or her words become clearer and sentences untangled. However, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a twinge of sadness. I'm mourning the loss of my baby girl. Even she tells me she's not a baby girl anymore, she's a "big girl". Sorry, Kiddo, you'll always be my baby girl!

One of the things that I'm kicking myself for not recording is my daughter's over-enunciation phase. I admit this is probably my fault that she started doing this. You see, she wouldn't pronounce the last sound of most words. So a typical sentence would be "Mom-aye, I wa-wa-wan go owsigh." Now there are plenty of things about this sentence that cracks me up and that have since changed. I'll start with the evolution of enunciation. In order to get her to start enunciating the words better I over-exaggerated the last sound of each word.

Me: "No, Baby, it's I wanT-T-T to go outside-D-D-D. Say 'want.'"
Baby Girl: "Wan"
Me: "No, 'want-t-t.'"
Baby Girl: "Wan"

Eventually her sentence became "Mom-aye, I wa-wa-want-t-t go ow-side-d-d-d." Every word that ended in a strong consonant was said in this way. She would repeat the last sound at least three times. Husband and I would correct her.

Us: "No, Baby Girl, it's 'wanT' say 'wanT.'"
Her: "WanT-t-t-t."
Us: "No. No t-t-t...just want."
Her: "Want........t-t-t."

Notice the fake out. She acted like she couldn't help it...she just had to add those extra "ta's" at the end. More likely, she just wanted to drive us insane. Eventually she dropped the over-enunciation as well. In fact, I can't exactly tell you when. I just one day noticed and mentioned it to Husband who couldn't tell me when she stopped either. As for the "wa-wa-want" part of the sentence...I'm not exactly sure how that started. She would always start want with a couple "wa's" before it, like she firmly believed that revving the word up would convince us to do what she wa-wa-wanted. Mom-aye is the part I mourn the loss of the most. I would tell her it was "Mommy not Mom-aye" but it was to no avail. I was Mom-aye to my baby girl. Where did she even get Mom-aye from anyway? I have no idea, but it grew on me. Et tu Mom-aye? Sigh. Though, I still get a good "Mom-aye" when Baby Girl is sleepy or just feeling real cuddly or even insecure. When she addresses me by Mom-aye I tend to drop what I'm doing to tend to her.

And so now the sentence has fully evolved into, "Dammie, I want to go owside!" Sigh. When did I become Jammie instead of Mommy? She thinks it's great calling us by our names, especially when she can't seem to get our attention by calling us Mommy and Daddy. I've gained many names since Baby Girl started talking. I went from Mama to Mimi to Mom-aye to Mommy to Dammie. But now mainly I'm just "Mommy".