wile's grasp of the english language is marching forward at a pretty good clip. this is of course making life easier—even if the "words" are kind of hard to understand, they're more decipherable than "eeeeeehhhhh!". i still twitch a little bit when i think of the "eeeehhhhh!".
the only time i'm really left guessing these days is when wile spits out a "word" that could be one of two (or more) words. sometimes context can help solve the confusion, but not as often as you'd think.... some examples:
"dusz" is either "shoes" or "juice". but it could be worse: in wile's friend dexter's vocabulary, "dusz" means "shoes", "juice", or "put on the dvd of the last waltz."
"yea-yea" is either "yellow", "yellow ball", or "luella". it's actually easy to tell when he means "yellow ball", because the "yea-yea" takes on a desperate, panicked tone, as in "mama i can't find the yellow ball we needtofinditnoooooow!!"
"bah" (pronounced with an a sound as in absent) is either "bath", "back", or "bad". and "back" can mean oh so so so many things: "go back to where we were", "put that back", "get it back out", "get back in the house, kitty!"....the list goes on. "bad" is used only when talking to the kitties. i'll find him standing over one of the little beasts pointing his finger at them and chanting "bah! bah!".
i'm sure there are more i'm not remembering right now. but tuesday night this whole homonym phenomenon caused a near meltdown....
we were getting mr. baby man into his pajamas after bath, talking about the normal things we talk about at this time like llamas and lambs and so on, when all of the sudden wile starts saying "moo!", emphatically and repeatedly.
wile: moo! moo! moo! moo! moo!
me: are you a little cow, wile?
wile: moo! moo! moo! moo! moo! moo! moo!
me: uuummm.....
wile: moo! moo! moo! moo! moo! moo! moo! moo!
stephen: is he gonna get stuck like this?
wile: moo! moo! moo! moo! moo! moo! moo!
me: wile baby, i don't know what....
wile: [pointing to the door] moo! moo! moo! moo! moo! moo! moo!
stephen: [opening the door] wile, there aren't any cows in the hallway, see?
wile: [still pointing to the door] MOO! MOO! MOO! MOO! MOO! MOO!
me: [picking up the baby] okay, we'll go out here and look for some cows...
wile: [now pointing down the hallway to the window in my closet] MOO! MOO! MOO!
me: oh!! you want to look out the window at the moon???
wile: MOOOOOOOO!
and in that last instance, "moo" clearly translated to "yes i want to look at the moon, don't you speak english??"
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