kira speak

some cute vocab I don't want to forget:

"oo turn, Mommy!" - your turn, Mommy. I LOVE this.

"uh oo" - Love you. At first, she said this in answer to us saying "I love you." Now, she'll tell us out of the blue. I'm so thankful.

empty - amazing how many ways she uses "empty" to get her meaning across.

"puler" - computer.

"rah-rahtz" - which is Yo Gabba Gabba. I think it has something to do with "robot". Anyway, rah-rahtz is her fave.

minnow - we have the book Would you rather be a bullfrog? and one of the questions is "Would you rather be a minnow or a whale?". One day, Kira shouted out, "MINNOW!" and it cracked us up. She loved the reaction, apparently, because she now likes to randomly shout it out. She also really likes to add it on when Jackson asks her to say something. Like, "Kira, say Daddy" - "MINNOW DADDY!" She thinks she's huh-larious.

"dat" "dere" "dis" - that, there, this. She uses these to drive me batshit crazy. Great that she knows them. Not so great when I have no idea what she's talking about.

"beh-dy?" - ready? She asks me this right before she does something that she thinks is awesome, like jumping, or dancing, or singing.

"morning!" - she says this about 152 times as she greets everyone walking down the hall to her classroom.

"doh-durt" - yogurt. Absolutely her favorite food.

"duh-ders" - crackers. Sounds almost exactly like doh-durt. She knows the sign for cracker, though, so that's how we figure it out.

And a story:
We were leaving the Dr's office when I realized that I locked my keys in the car. We had to call Derek to come rescue us (how he got to spend his lunch break on his birthday). So, Jackson, Kira, and I were waiting in the Dr's waiting room.

Kira: Mommy. rah-ratz puler? (Mommy, can we watch Yo Gabba Gabba on the computer?)
Me: No, baby. There's no computer here.
Kira (pointing to the TV): dere?
Me: No, baby. I'm sorry. We can't watch it there.
She thought for a sec and then her eyes lit up and she said: Mommy! Come on. Car. Home. Rah-rahtz puler.

Cracked me up! She was like, "I've totally got this figured out. We don't have to sit here. We can just get in the car, go home, and watch it there. Silly Mommy."

I don't know if I'd call her vocabulary approximations or not. I have to translate most of what she says, but sounds are getting clearer. Like "bed-dy" for ready was "belly" until very recently. She'll be having tubes put in and her tonsils (and maybe adenoids) removed soon, so it will be interesting to see how all of that plays into her language/speech. We still use lots of sign language, and she constantly has me asking her teacher what this or that new sign she's using is.

Sometimes she'll really surprise me with how she's able to communicate her thought processes to me, like with the Yo Gabba Gabba puler story.

The other day, I was getting her a drink while I was holding her. I put the lid on the cup and said, "Now what do we need?" and she said, "Straw." I need to remember to ask things like that more often. To give her the chance to show me what she knows.

I'm also starting to get little bits of communication that show me that she understands past/present/future. The other day, Jackson was off for a day of fun with his Beeka. I treated Kira and I to pizza for lunch. When Derek got home that evening, I said, "Daddy, Kira and I went to lunch today." and she said "Pizza" without any prompting. That was very cool. Jackson and I were able to talk about his day, etc, so very early. It's one of the things that I'm so ready for with Kira. We're getting there.