Oh! Dat's my...

You guys, I wish I could record an entire day of Rachel's speech and play the highlights for you. The highlights would be all the parts in which she speaks at all. She is so much fun to listen to. I do realize that that's mainly because I'm her mom, and everything is sweeter to the parents. Also, I understand her language better than any of you would, so most of that recording I mentioned earlier would sound like babbling to you. Still, I wish I could at least manage to record some bits of it to look back on later. Posterity or what have you.

Rachel starts her day with verbal explorations. As soon as I enter the room, she stands up in her bed and begins pointing out things around the room.

"Oh! Dat's my tayn-deen table."
"Yes, that's your changing table."

"Oh! Dat's my tock choose."
"Yes, those are your croc shoes."

"Oh! Dat's Payder's BIIIIIID fissy." (BIIIIID is in a deep, growly voice)
"Yes, that's Peter's big fishy."

"And dat's my diiiiiiny fissy." (diiiiiiny is in a squeaky, bitty voice)
"Yes, that's your tiny fishy."

On and on, while I change her diaper, until I put her feet on the floor and she runs to the dining room to award morning hugs to her siblings (who've most likely been arguing over who'll get "first hugs" that day).

She is very well spoken for a two year old, if you can figure out what she's saying. I have frequent back-and-forth discussions as she tells me what she wants, I try my best to interpret what she's saying and repeate it back to her, she repeats what she wants (because obviously I guessed wrong), and we continue till I figure it out. Typically these end with an "ah ha!" moment when I realize she's actually been saying it quite clearly, but I wasn't grasping the correct context so was barking up the wrong tree. She manages not to get as frustrated by this game as some of my kids have. This is a godsend since my hearing is notably worse than it was with the earlier kids, resulting in my getting worse at the game.

One of our most frequent points of confusion continues to be milk. Her pronunciation has evolved over the months from "dolk" to "bolk" to "bilk" and, most recently, to "milk", but since I wasn't expecting her to actually say "milk", and we weren't at a meal at the time, or even in the kitchen, it took me over half a dozen guesses to figure out what she wanted. Ridiculous for sure, but sort of funny once it was all happily resolved with a glass of milk in her hands. She may have been shouting "tup of milk, pleeeeease" by the time we wrapped up. At least she said "please".

I can't remember if I've already talked about her names for her siblings, but I'll do it again to be sure. I tried to take a video back in January, when she'd clearly started calling them all by name, but she refused to perform for the camera.

To Marianne's great delight, Rachel nicknamed Marianne "Ee-ee". We have no idea why. If you asked Rachel to "say Marianne", she's would, indeed, say "May Anne". But if you pointed at Marianne and said, "Who's this?", she would reply "Ee-ee." Marianne loved it! Sadly, this nickname has not stuck around, for all Marianne's encouragement. Just a couple days ago, when someone asked Rachel where "Ee-ee" was, she said, "Not Ee-ee. May Anne." And so it goes.

She calls Ruth "Roofy", but with a bit of W sound to the opening R. Meg's name utilizes a vowel sound I have no idea how to type, but the overall word falls somewhere between "Bed" and "Bood". And Peter, likely because of my habit of calling him "Peter J", was referred to as "Payder Day". However lately she's taken to calling him "Payter Don". His middle name is Joseph. I do sometimes call him "Peter Joe", but I can assure you I do not call him "Peter John", so that's a bit of a mystery.

Up until very recently, she would allow me to call her Rachel, or my baby, but any reference to her as "a big girl" was strictly forbidden. "I duh baby!" True enough. In the past week, though, she's had a bit of an existential crisis, and she wavers now between wanting to be "my baby" and wanting to be "a big girl". It was bound to happen. First she drops her eldest sister's pet name and renames her brother to her liking... the clear next step is to choose to grow up.