Learning a Language

I find it funny as Dani is learning new words how she starts to use these words and what she does to show us she understands (or doesn't yet understand) their meaning.

In late August and early September Dani was confusing the words"you" and "me". For example if she wanted to tackle Mom or Dad, she would say "tackle me". When she wanted to lie on top of Mom to get ready for bed, she would say "top me". If she wanted to play with her other toothbrush while I am brushing her teeth she will say "your" because I called it "your toothbrush". Whenever we talk about Dani and call her"you" or "her" she points to herself and says "you Dani" or "her".

Pronunciation is always interesting. Dani is still perfecting her 's' sound. Sometimes it sounds like "sh", like when she says the word sit. This makes me pause at certain times like when I tell her we need to brush her teeth and she says "no, sit" because she wants to sit on the counter. Or a couple weeks ago after we went to eat with Uncle Sean, we were leaving Best Buy, Dani was repeatedly yelling "sit" because she wanted to sit in the cart.

I love to see what she is learning through her play. Saturday Sept 26th Dani was playing with her toy spice containers saying "soap on" and putting them under her arm pit. I think she was pretending it was deodorant.

Dani has also started copying some of my quirks. When we dressed her in a new outfit she squeals "cute!!!" just like I say when I think she looks adorable. This past week everything was "CUTE!" and she had to rub whatever she thought was cute over and over (the snake in the book, Clifford in the puppy book etc). Then today, after a little baby boy was blessed in church, she said "cute!!!" quite loudly.

During regular conversation she will sometimes mention "Dani funny". I then agree with her that she is funny. The ironic thing is that this statement is often the reason I think she has been funny.

I have lots more to add from this week, but I wanted to make sure to post these for my own records later. I think it's pretty cute.