Well, of course they were "mama" and "dada," and if it please the court of Blororamaville public opinion, let the historical record show that there have been more of the latter than the former, but more than both combined of "baba" (her grandma in Chiba loves that!). But lately imoto's been nodding her head and grunting "unh" for "yes" and even trying to say "oishi"/delicious: "oy-jee"! Her favorite book is a Hello Kitty inai inai dobutsu/peekaboo zoo thing made of some high-tech material that's resistant even to her teeth and which over the past several weeks she's begun flipping the pages to reveal the lion, giraffe, panda, and so on. Well, in previous weeks she would make up the words, but this weekend and today we could distinctly hear her say, "nahhh, nahhh... na!" She was repeating this so often today that sometimes you could hear how it would glide toward "nai" at the beginning and "ba" at the end. You'll recall that peekaboo has always been her favorite game and she liked it so much at a very young age that she started doing it back to people with her hands, clothes, blankets, books, and whatever was at hand. So it's only fitting that her first phrase would be "inai, inai... ba!"
In this she's following in onechan's footsteps. Her first non-family word was "wan wan," the name of the dog character in the kids show Inai Inai Ba that she loved to watch on tapes sent by her aunt in Okinawa. I'll look up whether it was her first word, period, and when it came, but it's cool to see imoto run to the tv and camp out to watch the same show right here in Fukuoka as her onechan used to in the States when she was imoto's age.
Don't worry, imoto's still a rebel. She'll sit down when you say "suari nasai!" in a serious enough tone of voice, but then she'll get right back up again. We're never gonna keep her down, as that song goes. I'm sure her next word will be "no!" And that it'll become her favorite!
3 comments:
In a very sort while she'll be saying, when provoked, "I'm not a baby!" with marvelous conviction.
Well, of course they were "mama" and "dada," and if it please the court of Blororamaville public opinion, let the historical record show that there have been more of the latter than the former.
Of course you must know that "dada" is much easier for a baby to say than "mama", and this has been a bane for mothers since "mama" and "dada" became the words for "mom" and "dad".
Please begin instruction of WAAGNFNP words as soon as possible. I want to hear "3Tops!" and "Gojira!" and "Oaktown Girl!". And for the advanced pronounciation, "Lord Astaroth!"
Actually, her favorite was baba--grandma--better go change the post to reflect that!
Will get cracking on gojira first, I think. By the way, peter, onechan's favorite game is to pretend that she is a baby; it wasn't a game when imoto was first born, but it sure was funny to me and the tsuma to hear onechan insisting, "I am a baby!" in that unaware-of-the-self-negating-claim way she always did.
Post a Comment