As grown-ups, we tend to get flustered when we suddenly get tongue-tied, forget a word, or speak incorrectly.
Hell, even after speaking English for all of my 33 years, just today I was on a work call and I couldn’t get my words straight. I sounded like a blithering idiot trying to summarize some action items from a project I know like the back of my hand. Let’s just say it wasn’t my finest moment!
But when children are learning to speak, everything they say seems to be adorable. Knowing this — and being a mom herself — my best friend got me this amazing little book called My Quotable Kid, which gives parents a place to jot down all those adorable things their kids say.
Early on, it’s mostly the mispronunciations and later, the wild tales they tell … like me, at two and a half, asking my parents on the way to visit my grandma in Miami, “Well if this is MYami, then where is YOURami?” or at three, telling them with utmost confidence I would someday “live in a purple house in Newark with Snoopy.” Um, yes!
I’m no expert in toddler language development, but though we don’t always understand what Maya is saying, her pronunciation seems to be pretty good overall. For example, she appropriately enunciates the “t” at the end of words like “carrot,” “get” and “hat.” And she is very careful in her words — choosing them deliberately and looking to us for approval/nodding/comprehension, repeating herself several times until we “get” it (or pretend we do 😉 Sometimes you just have to go with it!)
But she definitely makes her fair share of oopsies — some of them literally making NO sense! — and as a result, I’ve had a blast filling in my copy of My Quotable Kid.
Here are a couple of my favorite mispronunciations with some commentary.
Ninoyaur –> Dinosaur (this one is my fave!)
Cookie Martin –> Cookie Monster (at least the first word is right!)
Bou-cou–> Milk (this one makes ZERO sense)
Locks–> Socks (another one that makes NO sense)
Goo-hey –> Goofy
Beebee yoot –> Bathing suit
Yoop –> Soup
Dack-yoom –> Vacuum
Ort-org –> Orange
Bythical –> Bicycle
Boomba –> Zumba (love this one!)
Zeeper –> Zipper
Wee-gull–>Wiggle (adorable)
A-whees –> Luis (her daddy :))
I look forward to what’s to come. And if you’re looking for a perfect gift for a new mom, this book is it!
How about you? What were some of your or your kids’ greatest “oopsies” or funny tales?
Let There Be Light 
I LOVE these. My favorite of Nate’s was “or-gonk” which was orange up until recently… I was actually sad when he started saying orange. My nephew used to say “Whack-yume” for vacuum. And I was “Ann Nandy” instead of Aunt Candy. I really cannot get enough of toddler mispronunciation. I adore it.
As for Maya’s locks/socks – I don’t see any words on the list that start with an “S.” Is it possible that she can’t start words with S, even if she says the S sound elsewhere in words?
TOOOOOOOOOO cute, Candice! Ann Nandy — love it!! Isn’t it so sweet?!
That one is a mystery to us. She says lots of other “s” words: star, straw, special, snack, Scout, scarf, scare, sleepy, sorry, sink, spoon, sticker … we have no clue why she can’t say “socks”!! Same with “milk” — she has a ton of “m” words … but the first word she knew how to sign … which she knows as “lee-chee” (leche) in Spanish … she pronounces all wrong. We just keep trying to use the right words … Sooo weird though, right?!