Thursday 23 September 2010

Polyphonic Dolly

Dolly has entered the incomprehensible babble phase. She often sounds like she is having fascinating conversations in a language entirely of her own invention. But it doesn't stop there. Even if I can't see her (because I'm driving, or cooking, or reading Heat etc) I can tell exactly what is going on by the noises she makes.

She will hold any rectangular object up to her head and mimic me speaking on the phone, that is, she emits a loud, monosyllabic and persistent tone, nods a lot, and frowns.

She will open up a book or magazine and 'read' the story. Her tone becomes varied and slightly higher pitched than normal, she points to the pictures, and grins a lot.  Being the neglected second child, she often spends hours in her cot happily reading to herself.

She makes a positively delighted sound and points her finger, when she sees a dog or a horse, or even better when she sees a rustling tree or a passing cloud.

She growls angrily if Tom, Betty or I are invading her space and she wants to be left alone to chew on her plastic dogs or eat her raisins.

She has started saying actual words too: ball, shoe, woof, cheese, Dadda, Mumma, hiya, and yeah, to name but a few. She even tried to say 'trousers' this morning.

She often chats so intently at you, I just wish I knew what the heck she was saying.

7 comments:

solveig said...

My second never did this babbling thing and I missed it - Freyja and her friend Ruby both babbled before they started really talking and Freyja used to sound Japanese while Ruby sounded German - it really made us laugh.

S x

Elsie Button said...

hi solveig, arr yes, you have just reminded me that Betty used to sound japanese too!

Tasha Goddard said...

Oh, I love this. I find the language acquisition part of development absolutely fascinating and would probably do a PhD on it if I had the time, money, academic background...

Rosemary has recently started babbling in a French accent - with occasional French words thrown in. That's how I started off with Spanish when we moved there.

Eleanor is still mostly incomprehensible sounds, but there are some words peeping through now and then, like 'dog poo' the other morning on the way to school.

Elsie Button said...

Hi Tasha, i agree, this language phase is totally and utterly fascinating. As is the betty/rosemary phase too - coming out with all sorts of mind-boggling delights! they are a shear joy to be around! (altho not always, of course)

Metropolitan Mum said...

Little L does the same, and she sounds surprisingly grumpy when 'on the phone'. Do I sound like that? Please, no...

Beccers said...

I love this! This is the stage when as a well-meaning friend/aunty/babysitter I usually look panicked and try to pretend I know what they're talking about. After a prolonged bout of "bleaurghienkdfeufnzmsllllalalalashmenetinfsk" (baby babble) the Mum normally smiles beatifically upon the child and says something like "Yes darling of course you can look through Becky's handbag" and I think "how did they get that from THAT?!"

It's nice to hear that Mum's don't always know either!

Elsie Button said...

i reckon the mums make it up!