Nora Evelyn

Nora has experienced a lexical explosion in the last two weeks. In no particular order, here are most of the words we can remember her having said:

ducky, mamma, dada, papa, fishie, yellow, elbow, bye bye, hello, hi, apple, shoe, sock, spoon, cheese, car, truck, cheers, balloon, booboo, diaper, doggie, keys, hop, hat, paper.

The only thing she routinely says that we have no idea what it is is ‘sha’ which, from context, seems most likely to be ‘tree’. Today I also got her to attempt barking like a dog; she’s got promise!

By far the most exciting act of communication happened today, though, and was totally non-verbal. Shortly after a diaper change she walked over to me, got my attention, looked into my eyes, and pointed gravely at her pants. I asked if she needed a new diaper and she nodded enthusiastically. Sure enough, her nappy was freshly soiled. I’m a little blown away.

The coolest (and most recent) word is paper because we got to watch her make minimal edits to transform apple into it. It went approximately like this:

nora: *holding a piece of paper*
auntie carrots: can you say paper?
nora: apple
auntie carrots: no, it’s not an apple. it’s paper. paper?
nora: papple
auntie carrots: that’s closer, can you say paper?
nora: pappuh

so, yeah, it still has the first vowel from apple and she’s still totally non-rhotic but she was clearly editing a known word into a lexical item for the object in her hand — pretty cool. Oh! and (here I wish I had video) she was watching ac’s mouth *very* closely. I really think she was mimicking gestures and not trying to match sounds (which would help explain the reluctance to match vowel quality but is probably completely ridiculous, unfounded and inexcusable wishful thinking on my part).

p.s. she also snores.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 at 10:36 pm and is filed under family & friends, language. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.