Today was one of Rebecca’s best-ever days. I don’t think she cried or fussed one time all day. Several times, I expected her to, but she just went about her business.
We swam in the morning, meeting some new people we’d never seen before. Again, she did really well, growing ever confident in her ability to move about the pool.
In the afternoon, she played inside as temps crested 100 degrees for the 7th day in a row (our longest streak so far this year). In the evening, she played outdoors and was glad to be reunited with her friend from across the street who’d been on vacation for three weeks (that’s the girl who was born the day after Rebecca, so they have that tie if nothing else). Both girls played in my car for 20 minutes or so, turning on the lights and locking/unlocking the doors — pretty much all they can do without keys.
The bunk bed we bought on Wednesday came in today, but the store owner (it’s a small store) called us to say the mattresses weren’t there yet. He promised a Monday delivery.
Rebecca’s new word is “fall” (as usual, she leaves off the closing consonant). She will stand next to her futon, announce “fah!” and then fall onto the bed. She’ll do this a dozen times or more with great delight.
So far, she believes all words are single-syllable except these three: mama, dada, and baby — the only words that are completely pronounced correctly by her. Every other word is one syllable: monkey = “muh”, garage = “gaah”, etc. Most one-syllable words, she leaves off the last consonant: duck = “duh”, for example. Several other words, you have to be paying attention to the surroundings: bird = “bee”. So if you didn’t see the bird, or didn’t see which direction her eyes were pointing, you’d have no idea she meant bird. Especially since “bee” can mean as many as six different things to her, depending on context.
Some words, she pronounces with a French accent: mole and yoos (juice). Which is odd. Even though my wife can converse in French, she almost never does. And doesn’t have a French accent. Anyone who’s heard her speak can attest she doesn’t have a New York accent either; many people, like me, who spoke to her on the phone before meeting her in person will swear she has a “valley girl” accent. In fact, when I first talked to her on the phone, I thought her voice sounded startlingly like my sister Heather — who picked up a little valley girl accent from one of her Lisa roommates in college.
Correction
Corrected spelling of “direction” above.
Not logged in
As always, I enjoyed reading about Rebecca. That’s cute about falling on her bed.
I think that the dropping of the ending sound is fairly common for children her age. If you think about it, we don’t emphasize the “ck” at the end of “duck” or similar words. And many two syllable words have the accent on the first syllable, making it easy for young children to drop that second syllable.
Good points, Mom.
She does have a striking ability to make connections. When I told her the scratch on my hand was a “boo boo”, she went over to a scratch on the wall and asked if it also was a “boo boo”.
LOL at the wall “boo boo.” That’s too cute.