Jelly Bean-ese and Misunderstandings

It is difficult living with people who don't speak the same language as me and twindada. The communication break down happens on a daily, if not hourly, basis at our house. At 20 months of age, Peanut and Jelly Bean are very active and their level of comprehension and communication is increasing regularly. However, there are times that I scratch my head because I have no clue what they are talking about or I laugh because there has been a misunderstanding.

Jelly Bean is my little communicator. She was the first to say Dada and the number of words she says increases weekly. Her very first word besides Dada and Mama was "door." She is constantly gabbing and sometimes there are a few English words dropped into her conversation, but other times she is definitely speaking her own language.

Her new thing is "reading" the books herself. She has decided that she is a big girl and wants to read to me and Peanut and is quite expressive. (I am quite expressive when I read to them.)

Here are a few Jelly Bean words that I hear regularly, but honestly have not been able to translate:

1. Shaboy-ya
2. Trac-ta
3. A-wu-da-ba

If anyone speaks this language, please let me know what my child is saying. She may be telling me how the nation should get out of our financial crisis and I am unable to decode. Maybe I should call the CIA...

Then there is Peanut. Her level of comprehension is astounding, but her communication isn't as strong as Jelly Bean right now. She is definitely a smart little whipper-snapper though! If I mention a certain animal in one book, she can locate another book or toy that has that same exact animal. We call that cross-referencing.

However sometimes we have misunderstandings because she is retaining so much. Here are some examples:

1. Peanut knows most of her body parts and one of those is elbow. We don't watch Sesame Street, but received a Elmo toy recently. When I told her who he was, she pointed to her elbow. "No, that is elbow. This is ELMO." I try to explain. Forget it. She is determined to show me that she knows what she is talking about. She also did it when we watched Dora dance the mambo on Dora the Explorer. Babies.

2. Like I said, she knows her body parts. When we got a book of farm animals, I pointed to the baby chicks and told her, "Chicks." "Dah!" Peanut points to her CHEEKS (The ones on her face. C'mon, this a g-rated blog!)

So, it is never a dull moment here at our house. There is lots of learning and clarifying and re-stating and head scratching and what the heck did she just say? Life is grand.