"see me, mommy!"

When they're young, and just learning, little kids speak their own language. Of course, there's the baby nonsense, and then comes the jibberish where it seems your child knows exactly what he's trying to tell you, but since none of it is in English, you can't understand. Next come the single word phrases, repeated over and over until the child gets what they want: "milk. milk. milk milk milk? MILK MILK!" Then the fragmented sentences are always fun. But the phase I am enjoying with The Boy right now is one of my favorites. It's the "Speaking English But Have My Phrases All Wrong" phase.

Today The Boy found a long lost pretend cell phone that plays music when you push the buttons. Some buttons simply beep, but some buttons make entire songs play, and The Boy dances. Now, The Boy doesn't dance like you or I might dance. What he does is skip/run around in a big circle (somewhat in rhythym with the music). He'll take up as much space as is available to make his circle, and when the song ends, he likes to end his dance by landing with a thud on his knees.

The Boy loves to dance, and he wants an audience. In between each song, he asks me to watch him, only that's not what he actually says. "See me, Mommy! Mommy, see me, please!" It's so cute.

My next favorite wording of his is how everything is kind of in the past tense, but not quite right. "My bowl felled" "I felled and hitted my mouth". I am always a little sad when they start speaking better English because it's much less fun.

Of course, it will be a while before I have to worry about it. The Babe still doesn't have it all quite right. She calls being without clothes "nakedless". I am sure she's confusing 'Naked' and 'topless', for example; but no matter how hard I try to explain that being "nakedless" would mean you were "without naked", meaning you would have clothes on... so therefore "nakedless" is the exact opposite of what she is trying to convey.... oy! I give myself a headache, no wonder she doesn't get it yet......