She some chatty

It finally happened. My darling little girl has discovered the world's most annoying noise. She has gone from making adorable baby chatter to something like this. (And kudos to whoever looped that.) It's not an unhappy noise, it's a constant, thinking about-the-world and enjoying-her-vocal-chords kinda noise. It gives me sympathy for Brian and all my old roommates who have had to listen to me sing while I cook.


Having said that, a child learning to talk may be the most adorable thing in the world. My niece, Cailin, wins for the cutest baby stutter, when at something like 14 months would say "wah - wah - water?" everytime she saw it. The mispronunciations come next - her three year old little brother Harrison has some real doozies, such as "hopsicle" (hospital) "ballila" (vanilla) and "pink dink" (picnic). I very much enjoyed getting him to say fox for a while - he couldn't say X, it came out as a K sound. New parents and especially friends of new parents delight in teaching kids to say borderline things. That can quickly backfire - the husband of my friend Kerri Ann, Tim, taught his 2 year old son Carter to call a friend jack ass. Unfortunately, when Kerri Ann, Tim and Carter and Brian and I spent Christmas dinner at the house of said friend, Carter spent most of Christmas dinner yelling jack ass! jack ass! at the dinner table.

I hesitate to call these kiddy-isms, it's so treacly, how about infanphonics? Toddlese? Anyway, some of these have entered the common parlance around my house. Quite often, they shorten conversations quite nicely. "Doing?" "I DO-ing" (after Brian's nephew Declan). I don't say "that's all right, leave it to me," I say "do it SELF." Another Cailinism.

Now Cailin just keeps upping the ante on adorable things to say. She is now 5 going on 24, has an enviable fashion sense, and runs a tight ship where she and her brother are concerned. Since the day she could finally string together words, she has been apt to utter pure poetry. "Mom, I need a new nose. This one is leaking." When she was three she was dismayed to be told that she couldn't play in the playground until summer. Days later, as she was looking intently out the window, my sister asked her what she was doing. She was searching for summer. And once, when my sister was talking to her on the phone, she suddenly said "I have to go mom. I don't have a job so I have to take the kids to the casino."

We have no idea where she gets these. Her weird comments are timely and incredibly astute about the world. The latest is the best. My sister had put out a plate of cheese for guests which included applewood smoked cheddar. Cailin declared that she didn't like it. "It's too smoky. It's too...... San Franciso-y."

NO idea where that came from, and even under some pretty determined questioning Cailin wouldn't break. I love it though. San Francisco-y. Like slightly pretentious in a progressive sort of way. Like too nouveau cuisine. Like too foggy and indistinct. I have no idea. But I'm keeping it. That phrase has a whole world of possibilities.