New words

Anya is picking up new words seemingly every day now, so I'm not going to be able to keep this word list going much longer. But it's fun to write: the words she uses are almost as concise a way as I can imagine to describe her world, or at least the parts of her world that are important enough to her to have names. This is a brief, incomplete list:

Lights: There was a stage when she was totally obsessed with lights. Put her in a room and she'd obsessively point at the ceiling, grinning at you for approval, saying "lights" at each individual socket. We had many conversations along these lines.

Ants: Anya loves words ending in "-ts" (see: "nummets!") and this has to some extent taken over from "lights" as flavour of the month. Jasper the cat eats his food from a bowl by the back door but he's a bit of a messy eater, and there's usually a halo of food scraps spread around. Now it's summer, this attracts a column of ants all day long, and Anya likes to squat on the back step, jabbing out an index finger and muttering "ants!"

Cocodill: I think I've mentioned before that one of her first favourite animals seems to be the crocodile. It's also one of her most complex words. God knows what she sees in them--I hope the affection wears off before we go back to northern Australia.

Cocoleh: This one's a bit baffling. She started using it the other morning to talk about prunes. She was quite definite about the word but I can't quite work out the etymology. She's either noting that prunes are sort of dark and ridgy, like "cocodill" (qv.), or she's learned that chocolate is a word for something dark and sweet and she's got confused (she's not eaten much chocolate in her life, poor dear). Or, she's just come up with a random term.

Tiger: Althea gave Anya a giant stuffed tiger from Woolworth's before her first birthday, and she's been obsessed with it ever since. An important part of getting up in the morning is greeting tiger, and crawling on it, sprawling on it, and, yes, humping it are all vital daily activities.

Burr: A favourite flying animal. She's quite good at recognising these: anything with clawish feet, even in a book, is instantly recognised. I think the feet are crucial: I'm not sure that she always recognises web-footed ducks as "burr".

Gannie: My mum had a great time with Anya while she was visiting and the feeling was mutual. Towards the end of her stay, she was rewarded with her own name. I think the letter "r" is a really tricky one in Indo-European languages (lots of Asian languages don't have it at all, the fact that launched a thousand racist jokes), and Anya doesn't seem to be using it yet. So "granny" becomes "gannie".

Bub-aows When you blow bubbles around Anya she just hits some pinnacle of toddler cuteness, grinning from ear to ear, running to pop them, and singing out "bub-aows" in a voice filled with pure delight.

Bubbies: Nipples, both male and female. Sometimes when we get Anya into bed in the morning she'll sit there playing point and touch and proclaiming: "bubbies". I think she finds it fascinating that both mummy and daddy have them.

Mine: Parents of older toddlers *hate* this word, but while Anya is pretty familiar with it she doesn't use it excessively and, when she does, it's with a playful tone, like she's toying with you. I'm sure this will fade and she'll start using it in the self-focused way that gets parents' backs up, but for the moment it's just sweet.

Car: If Anya was a boy, we might be sagely nodding that her obsession with cars is a sign of How Deep-Seated Gender Really Is. As it is, it's just another thing she's into. She loves being in the car, and when (as last weekend) we visit friends with plastic toy baby-cars, she loves to get in and have a drive around. Most of all, though, she loves to be wheeled along the street in her pram, enumerating every car she passes.

Play: Her other vehicular obsession: planes. We have enough of these whizzing over our under-the-flightpath house that she's very familiar with them, and we've ridden in a fair few, too.

Wotzis?: What's this? Anything new or interesting to her, she has a language ritual she follows. First she points, has a closer look, turns it over...

Ohh!: ...then she says this too, as if she's some sort of connoisseur of random fluff and bits and bobs. This is actually a quite handy turn of phrase because you can reply to "wotzis?" by saying "that's a GRE-NADE! A GRE-NADE! Yes!", or referring otherwise to whatever she happens to be handling. Of course, I think the ritual is more important than actually finding out what x is called, so much of the time it's not a teachable moment.

Up: Another ritual. I'm not sure yet whether she understands the word's more general use, but if you put her in a pram she thinks it's great fun to lift the sunshade and say "Up!"

Dah: What we say when the sunshade goes down.

Whee: Something you say around playground swings, and potties.

Buh-bye: This was in the last list, but I wanted to include it again because the way she's started using it is so hilarious. It still means "farewell" much of the time, but it's also "I've had enough" or "Get that out of my sight". Give her food she doesn't like, and she'll "Buh-bye" the first mouthful.

Buh-bye.