The Spoken Words

What She's Sayin'
I think it's always exciting when little ones begin to speak and we can discern what they are trying to say. The thing about Kat is that she started to speak in a comprehensible manner, and much more than a word or two, when she was around 9 months old. However, for whatever reason, she, like her big sister, stopped vocalizing in "adult" words within a couple months. She still jibber-jabbered, but it was basically unintelligible.

For the last few months Kat has been starting to say things we can understand again. Now, this does NOT mean this little lady has been incommunicado between about 11 months and 19. On the contrary! Where Ria could sign up a storm to communicate her wishes and ideas, Kat JUST communicated!!! She still does this, of course, but there are adult words mixed in now, which makes for very sweet and cute effort to make herself known. I would like to add that most people around Kitty Kat completely understand her no matter HOW she's communicating. She's a GOOD communicator! Because I feel concerned that she's not understood (as I think most Mother's do with their non-speaking toddlers) I usually just interpret what she's trying to convey. Almost without exception, when I do this, the person to whom I'm interpreting Kitty Kat's communication tells me they completely understood her already! There are plenty enough times that they'll interrupt me and tell me what she's saying - AND they are correct!!!! It's pretty awesome! ^_^

Having said all that, it's still lovely to hear Kathryn trying to reproduce speech patterns that will enable her widespread verbal communication. (Of course! What parent doesn't adore the early days of speech!??)

Currently Kat is saying "YaYa" really often. Can you guess why she would say it all through the day? This is her lazy way of saying "Ria." I say lazy because she has more closely replicated RIA, but doesn't do it regularly. Since Ria is either her favorite (or second favorite person - Daddy may have her beat), she calls for and says YAYA all day long!

She's also started saying her own name when you ask her to, but I haven't heard that often enough to try to phonetically write it out. She has said Mama and Daddy as long as I can remember, but she's actually said "Jessie" a couple times! This is, of course, not encouraged, but it still amazes me.

Kitty Kat gets to watch a movie when Ria and I sit down to "do school." When she chooses her movie, I hold two up and she points to one and says, "dzat." Interpreted, is, of course, "that." She uses her version of "that" for other things as well.

Another new addition to all day use is the word "tay." I might say, "We need to leave the laundry room now." And Kitty Kat responds, "Tay." Can you guess? It's her version of "Okay." We've tried to get her to say the whole word, but she doesn't want to add the "oh" sound at the beginning. She's definitely understandable and it's quite cute, so I haven't really pressed her.

Kat and I "do school" whenever she's interested. Thus far we work with colors. She doesn't really SAY most of the colors, it's more about correctly identifying and recognizing them. However, she does say, "pupoo," "boo," and "kink." I'm sure you can figure those out! :)

I'm very pleased when Kat calls for her Winnie the Pooh, which I made for her. She calls him either "poo" or "bayya." I don't think I've heard her put the two together. But it warms my heart that that particular toy is valuable to her!

I'm sure there are more, but I cannot recall any at this moment. Surely I will update her sweet speech as further developments in her adorable vocalizations occur. ^_^