July 5, 2007

Wordings

It's me again, Mr. Forty-two Roads; my initial posting met with critical acclaim (or at least immediate-family acclaim), and so I'm trying again. We walked Lara around the neighborhood today in her little car. Here she is wheelin' around:

july 5

I'm endlessly amused by how quickly she latches on to new means of communication. She's so desperate to name her world, she tends to work with whatever word sticks first. For the last week, every time we get to a street, Lara says, "mup," and points to the street, then faces me and raises her arms. Anna and I have puzzled over how on earth streets became "mups", and today, finally, we figured it out. Since Lara started walking, every time we would get to a street, we said to Lara, "ok, time to come up" to get across. She just focused on the end of that long phrase, and now calls the whole street-crossing maneuver "mup."

Another funny wordplay: poodles. Dogs, in general, get a deep, "woof, woof," as Lara barks at them. Sheep are greeted with a ferocious "BAAAAA!" (usually as loud as Lara can muster; for some reason in Lara's world farm animals are savage bloodthirsty beasts). But what to call poodles? Lara gives them a brief 'woof' followed by a short 'Baaaa!' clearly perplexed at this strange hybrid dog-sheep creature.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very soon your column will have a following. And then a bit later you will have to expand the column by adding a Q&A section... still Lara is definitely the star of the show,... column, that is. Loved it!

fourstar71 said...

Just stumbled across 'your' blog; our (18 month) daughter is also on the "woof woof" team (in fact, "oof oof" is favourite) despite our best efforts to get the word 'dog' into the vocabulary.

That said, I now find myself saying "oof oof" when referencing a canine beast; this then automatically transports me back to my mother suggesting I look out of the window of the "chuffabilly" whilst on a train somewhere in the North of England.

I was 22 at the time.

We still laugh.