Translations

The kids are talking more and more these days, and in many cases they are very easy to understand.  Like when Caroline said this morning, "Ooh! Bear cookies! My favorite!"  Other times, there's a little bit of translation needed, like the other night when I asked if she wanted to get out of the tub and she said, "No! I stay bafff.  Isss party time." Seems clear, right? Then she pooped, so maybe she meant, "It's POTTY time?"  One of my favorite things that they say is when one of them falls down or bumps into something and we worry and they respond, "Iss OK - I fine!"  

The boys aren't always as easy to understand, but they keep it a little simpler.  Where Caroline says, "I hungry. Dinner?", Daniel and Max chorus, "Chair? Chair? Chair?" in their hopes of getting us to put them in their high chairs and feed them.  When they don't want to go to sleep, they say, "No bed time" and when they're ready for a snack they tell us, "Cookie" or "apple" or "Ba-na" (banana).  If only we knew what Daniel meant when he asked, "Ba-bass? Ba-bass?"  And, of course, "Sit down!" still means, "Get up and follow me" quite often.

And like anything else, it helps to know the context.  When there's an ad break in Max's favorite tv show and he says, "Lay tao bee why baa," he means, "Lazy Town will be right back."  When you ask Caroline, "What does a mouse say?" and she answers with a bear-like growl, she's actually right ... if you've seen the Gruffalo cartoon as many times as she has!  (by the way, that's what she's referring to when she shows you a picture and announces proudly, "Is the guffoh!")  But that sound can also be her Cookie Monster voice, which explains why I got confused in this conversation:

But sometimes the context you imagine can lead you astray and you have to go with your original instincts.  A few weeks ago, Uncle Kelly brought frozen yogurt for the kids.  I'd told him to get vanilla with fruit and he did.  It had cut up berries, melon, and kiwi.  We doled it out in little bowls and Caroline started shrieking, "Foggy!  Foggy!  Noooo!!! Foggy!"  I had a suspicion what the problem was, but Uncle Kelly made a good suggestion - she obviously wanted her froggy bowl and the matching froggy spoon.  But even after that change had been made she was hysterical and inconsolable.  So I fished the little bits of kiwi out of the bowl.  And she calmed down and ate the remaining fruit and yogurt.

See?  Uncle Kelly understood that she was saying, "Froggy," but I knew that she meant that she didn't want to eat the little green froggy bits her Uncle had put in the dessert topping.  She'd never had kiwi before - wouldn't YOU think it was chopped frog meat?