Your Baby's Vocabulary

by Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger

12 Sep 2008 06:05 AM

One of the biggest delights, I find, as a parent of a young child is all of the great new words and phrases that appear on a daily basis. I never know what is going to come out of the mouth of my two-year-old, and that is a good thing.

Sometimes the words can be funny and make me laugh, either because of the pronunciation, or because they are unexpected. One phrase that always makes me smile and makes me prompt my little one to repeat it occurs near bedtime, when he rinses out his toothbrush. He proudly tells everyone: "I washed my toothbrush." It comes out more like "I wash my boothbus!" and is said so emphatically, that it makes everyone smile.

When you ask him to do something that he doesn't want to do, he'll utter a quick, "No Way!" And, when you insist that he does what you ask or tell him that he can't have a cookie before dinner, he utters: "Oh Man!" He has also started calling his older brother "Wawa," the name of a local convenience store here, because he knows it drives that brother batty. And yes, he can pronounce his brother's name correctly when he wants to do so.

These little words and phrases have a way of sticking with you as a parent, even as other people roll their eyes at you after they have heard you gush about it for the twentieth time. My mother, used to tell everyone, even after I achieved adulthood, about my own verbal skills. She like to relate how when I was a toddler with a cold, I told everyone to stay away from me because I was "contaminated." A friend of mine has a two-year-old who used to pronounce the word vacuum so that it sounded as if he was cursing everyone out. While it is a good thing that he grew out of that pronunciation, I think I can hear the nostalgia in her voice when she talks about it.

What words and phrases does your baby like to say that you think are cute or funny?

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Learn more about Mary Ann Romans

Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat.

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ljb (3984) 12 Sep 2008 08:20 AM

Oh so True! My two year old surprises me everyday with the things that come out of his mouth. There are those words that sound like less flattering words: "sock", "sit", "truck", "frog" (those last two sound like the same unflattering word...) It cracks me up because I soooo want him to pronounce the word "lizard" as 'wizard', cuz I think that is the cutest thing ever! But he won't even attempt it when I ask him. But he doesn't not hesitate to say 'excavator'! All boy!

Mary Ann Romans (26876) 12 Sep 2008 11:26 AM

Wow! Excavator is impressive. Have you taken him to see the trucks at an excavation site?

gborosoccer7 (80) 31 Mar 2009 09:36 AM

I am a psychology student and we learned a lot of facts about language in children. We learned that there is a critical period in which children should start learning language due to brain maturation, myelination, and social interaction.We also learnied the characteristics and achievments in language with each age. in children 2 years of age they know 100-2000 words,and their sentence length is 2 to 6 words. In children 3 years of age they know 1,000-5,000 words, and their sentence length is 3 to 6 words. In children 4 years of age they know 3,000 to 10,000 words and their sentence length is 5 to 20 words. Lastly in children 5 years of age they know 5,000 to 20,000 words and their sentence length seems unending sometimes. As experienced parents do you find this to be true information or is it different with every child?

bearwithme (71) 14 Aug 2009 07:23 PM

That is too cute Mary Ann and also LJB. My daughter just turned 2 years old and she has taken off with ther vocabulary somthing fierce. When she pooped in her diaper yesterday, she said, "Momma, I poopy and 'tinky, 'tinky...poooweeyy!" as she waved her hand in front of her face as if to fan away the smell. She will see a picture of a frog and exclaim, "Froggy!" except that it comes out sounding just like the bad word with and ending of "cky." She calls balloons "Booways" and pillows "poo-wees" and she'll also ask me "mamma, wha' you fink?"