Da or Ga - The thing I am pointing at
Pappa - Daddy
Mamma - Mummy
Kom - Come here/I am coming
Caw Caw! - a bird on land or in the air, sounds like a raven's call
Kwa' - a bird on water, sounds like a duck
Du' - a duck
*snort - a pig, sounds exactly like bloody Peppa Pig, and hence
Peppa Pi' - bloody Peppa Pig
Ipa' - I will require use of your ipad in the near future
Ba ba - Bye Bye, accompanied by waving usually about thirty seconds after whoever you're waving at has left
Haluh (occasionally with virtually any household item alongside head) - Hello, I'm on the phone
Crrrr - Cracker or similar biscuity, crunchy foodstuff
Brrrm - The noise a car makes as you push it along the floor, hence also the noise a picture of a car makes as you push it along the floor as though it were a car to show you've understood what we're looking at here
Gr' Gr' - Frog and/or the noise it makes
Googir - Good Girl, i.e. herself
Curl or currel - a cuddle, now please
A-aaah - Teddybear
A-aaaaah! (loud, shrill) - that's the giant teddybear outside the sweetshop on the way to the park!
Aa - I am excited about the thing I am indicating right now
AAA! - I am very excited about the thing I am indicating right now, which is often a bath
AAAAAA! (piercing) - Behold! Daniel Tiger/Pipi Pupu and Rosemary/Wibbly Pig/Timmy Lammen/Byggare Bob/bloody Peppa Pig (delete as appropriate) is on the TV!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (heartrending) - It is midnight, please pick me up and place me in your bed until I tell you otherwise (new all this week)
Uh uh uh - This mechanical device is making an unexpected or alarming noise, I will require picking up now
Ne - No
NO (with vigorous head shaking) - I do not require any more of this foodstuff
No No NO NO NO - I am not currently sleepy and would prefer to continue playing with this bucket at the present time
Pla' pla' - I will now play the piano for you
Gunga gunga gunga gunga gunga (rocking) - that is a swing/swings are fun/I am swinging/that is a playpark/I am on a rocking horse, see-saw or other related item/I would like to go to a playpark (delete as appropriate)
Gubba gubba gubba (repeat indefinitely) - We are having a conversation
Bugger bugger bugger (repeat indefinitely) - We are still having a conversation
No (talk to the hand gesture) - Conversation over
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Silhouette Recognition
F likes my T-shirts. I've got a whole bunch of increasingly elderly ones from when I was last a student. The usual kind of stuff - a few smart-alec quips, iconography from 80s kids' cartoons and other assorted geekery.
She points at whatever the T-shirt de jour is, and I read out whatever it says. Or explain the picture, or do some kind of minor performance appropriate to the garb. Standard 'dance monkey dance' father-based entertainment for her, to be done on command and then repeated for as long as it pleases her.
She learns very fast now, she's got a lot of vocab already (probably not far behind my Swedish, sadly). Even if she doesn't speak so much as babble, she certainly understands plenty. So she can point at the Thundercats logo and say "Ho!", of which I am justly proud. Sadly, Mr Benn's shopkeeper, who is on a big yellow and red circle about the same size and shape as the Thundercats' Cat Head, gets a little frown and a "ho?", so she's not quite there yet. Unless Mr Benn is currently cosplaying as Lion-O.
V recently bought me a T-shirt that says 'What Part Of Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn Don't You Understand' (look it up if you don't). If you do the cultish chanting bit in appropriately octopoid burbles, really hitting the gutterals, that always gets a good chortle and an indication to repeat.
All well and good - basic shape and sound associations, bonding with daddy, etc etc. However, her absolute favourite T-shirt is my Trapdoor one, the claymation series that Willie Rushton did the voices for. As featured on No. 73 in the mid-80s. She knows all the characters names, as featured on my stomach. Which means I've taught my daughter to point at Daddy and say 'Burk'.
Good.
She points at whatever the T-shirt de jour is, and I read out whatever it says. Or explain the picture, or do some kind of minor performance appropriate to the garb. Standard 'dance monkey dance' father-based entertainment for her, to be done on command and then repeated for as long as it pleases her.
She learns very fast now, she's got a lot of vocab already (probably not far behind my Swedish, sadly). Even if she doesn't speak so much as babble, she certainly understands plenty. So she can point at the Thundercats logo and say "Ho!", of which I am justly proud. Sadly, Mr Benn's shopkeeper, who is on a big yellow and red circle about the same size and shape as the Thundercats' Cat Head, gets a little frown and a "ho?", so she's not quite there yet. Unless Mr Benn is currently cosplaying as Lion-O.
V recently bought me a T-shirt that says 'What Part Of Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn Don't You Understand' (look it up if you don't). If you do the cultish chanting bit in appropriately octopoid burbles, really hitting the gutterals, that always gets a good chortle and an indication to repeat.
All well and good - basic shape and sound associations, bonding with daddy, etc etc. However, her absolute favourite T-shirt is my Trapdoor one, the claymation series that Willie Rushton did the voices for. As featured on No. 73 in the mid-80s. She knows all the characters names, as featured on my stomach. Which means I've taught my daughter to point at Daddy and say 'Burk'.
Good.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Playdate
Our friends A (a few months younger than F) and J (a couple the other way) came over to visit for lunch the other day.
I had visions of a cheerful meal followed by both children playing together under the warm and relaxed supervision of their parents. There was a dream of a glass of wine.
Which was always going to be ridiculous, let's face it.
F had only just woken up as they arrived, and got a bit thrown by the extra people in her lunchtime routine. Or something. I'd rather believe that than believe that she is as dramatically antisocial as she pretended to be for the next hour and a half. Every time friendly baby A came to cuddle her or say hello, she burst into howling tears and threw herself on the nearest parent as though we were a divan in a Victorian melodrama.
Okay, having a chap you've only just met rush up to you and pat your bum is perhaps more forward than most young ladies would appreciate. But the degree of weeping seemed excessive, even to me, and I'm a right drama queen.
You can tell when F is being melodramatic, because she can shut her waterworks off the moment she gets whatever she's after. In this case, as long as she was the beating heart of Daddy's world to the exclusion of all else, there would be no more screaming. Even if she is exactly that on a moment to moment basis, I'm trying very hard not to let her know it at the moment.
So I tried to behave as though lunch was proceeding as planned, wine, pleasant conversation, jolly playtime and all. No mean feat with the equivalent of a sonic landmine clamped to my legs. I thought I managed it with great aplomb.
After an hour and a half, by which time even A's cheerful attempts to socialize were looking a bit woebegone, we went out to the park instead. Where F repeated her performance with someone else entirely.
A little girl came up to her, smiles from ear to ear, and tried to shake hands. F brushed her off and turned away, clearly far too busy, important and socially superior to have time for such a frivolous encounter, although she did accept the girl's brother's kindly offer of a stick. Brusquely and without thanks.
At least she didn't scream at them. Perhaps she frowns on public displays of emotion. She's part Swedish, after all.
Pappagris, they say in Sweden, of little girls who cling to daddy, Daddy's pig. The sooner she goes to day care and gets used to playing with other people, the better, I don't want her turning into a shut-in. She's very obviously fascinated with other kids when we're out, but she doesn't really know how to play with them yet.
I'm sure she'll learn, and quickly too. And I'm equally sure I'll rue the day she started at some future point when I'm knee-deep in 8-year-olds trying to have a sleepover.
I had visions of a cheerful meal followed by both children playing together under the warm and relaxed supervision of their parents. There was a dream of a glass of wine.
Which was always going to be ridiculous, let's face it.
F had only just woken up as they arrived, and got a bit thrown by the extra people in her lunchtime routine. Or something. I'd rather believe that than believe that she is as dramatically antisocial as she pretended to be for the next hour and a half. Every time friendly baby A came to cuddle her or say hello, she burst into howling tears and threw herself on the nearest parent as though we were a divan in a Victorian melodrama.
Okay, having a chap you've only just met rush up to you and pat your bum is perhaps more forward than most young ladies would appreciate. But the degree of weeping seemed excessive, even to me, and I'm a right drama queen.
You can tell when F is being melodramatic, because she can shut her waterworks off the moment she gets whatever she's after. In this case, as long as she was the beating heart of Daddy's world to the exclusion of all else, there would be no more screaming. Even if she is exactly that on a moment to moment basis, I'm trying very hard not to let her know it at the moment.
So I tried to behave as though lunch was proceeding as planned, wine, pleasant conversation, jolly playtime and all. No mean feat with the equivalent of a sonic landmine clamped to my legs. I thought I managed it with great aplomb.
After an hour and a half, by which time even A's cheerful attempts to socialize were looking a bit woebegone, we went out to the park instead. Where F repeated her performance with someone else entirely.
A little girl came up to her, smiles from ear to ear, and tried to shake hands. F brushed her off and turned away, clearly far too busy, important and socially superior to have time for such a frivolous encounter, although she did accept the girl's brother's kindly offer of a stick. Brusquely and without thanks.
At least she didn't scream at them. Perhaps she frowns on public displays of emotion. She's part Swedish, after all.
Pappagris, they say in Sweden, of little girls who cling to daddy, Daddy's pig. The sooner she goes to day care and gets used to playing with other people, the better, I don't want her turning into a shut-in. She's very obviously fascinated with other kids when we're out, but she doesn't really know how to play with them yet.
I'm sure she'll learn, and quickly too. And I'm equally sure I'll rue the day she started at some future point when I'm knee-deep in 8-year-olds trying to have a sleepover.
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