Zoe Words

While I am thinking about it, I wanted to make a list of Zoe's one hit wonders. If you are a diligent reader of this post, and you should be, Mom and Dad, then you'll remember that Zoe said "Oh Yea" on multiple occasions when she was about 3 1/2 months old. It wasn't a pure Oh Yeah -- there was always a little baby gurgle and some alphabet soup inserted in random spots. But she would say it relatively frequently. Suddenly as miraculously as it appeared however, it disappeared. Probably when we started noticing it and commenting on it a lot


For a long time though, she just had fun with babble, and we enjoyed the sounds but didn't bother to attempt to translate.

Now, she has started to come up with what I'm calling "one-hit wonders" -- just one-time utterances of understandable words that make sense in context. But that she has never repeated since. Lest I forget them, I am making a list here. I'll include a little bit of the background.

*Up -- today we went on a hike in Millcreek Canyon. We were encouraging her to look up, when out of her mouth comes "Up."

*Adios -- Mom & Dad gave us a great educational toy -- La Granja Sonora -- also known as the Talking Farm. It's a fun bilingual 'farm' that has different animals you can press and they will say their name & the noise they make -- in either English or Spanish. If you neglect it, it encourages you to come back and play. After 2 or 3 tries of this encouragement, if you are simply otherwise occupied, it will say "bye bye" or "Adios". She plays with it constantly. About a week or so ago, it said "Adios" and she said it back.... with a little bit of that baby babble alphabet soup attached at the end. She's also starting to get more items correct when the man asks her to pick the right animal -- the other day she got three right in a row, in Spanish -- el caballo negro, la pata amarilla & la oveja blanca.....

*Oh My Goodness -- Zoe & Rolf were spending a lot of time playing together about a month or so ago -- Rolf is my nephew -- about 2 1/2 and quite the talker. Like most children his age, he repeats some of his favorite phrases with regularity. He was oh-my-goodness-ing a lot and Zoe got caught up in his exclamatory zeal and threw one out there. If I had to spell it, it would be " omigoognigabrladn"

*bagel -- We camped out in Jeff's parent's backyard at the beginning of the fall season to check out Provo Canyon & the beautiful fall colors. We found an awesome hike, by the way. Afterwards, we went through a drive through to get a bite to eat and were discussing the merits of bagels. Suddenly from the backseat (and with no alphabet soup trailing) comes "bagel". All of these happen so quickly and without precedent that you always wonder if you really heard what you think you heard.

*I know -- I say this a lot apparently, when trying to comfort Zoe when she's upset about something. The other night she was having a sad baby moment, and crying about not being able to sleep or some such thing. During the middle of her crying, to comfort herself she said "I know...." and resumed her sad baby tears.

These ones are the more popular ones that keep coming out:

*doggy -- This has come out on several occasions, not quite fully formed but in the proper context more or less. I haven't heard it come out without some extra letters attached.

*baby -- she says 'ba ba' so often that this one is almost a question mark. Of course we like to call her baby a lot so maybe she is saying it just as often as we do.

*mama -- does a lot of mama's which I interpreted to me from the get go, even though they may have meant something else originally. I guess I'm not the only mama who has done that ; )

*no no no -- I first noticed that she was copying me doing the infamous 'no' word when she shut my computer off in the middle of working. Buttons are obsessions with her; She also keeps making my page disappear as I type right now because she has figured out some function of the mouse that I myself have no clue how to use-- and does a little 'no no no' to accompany her naughtiness.

*ahem -- Jeff is a chronic throat clearer so Zoe does a little imitation of him...all the time, each time he does it