Right now has got to be the cutest age for talking. I know they get more complex and say even funnier things, but the cuteness probably overloads right at around 2-2.5 year of age.
The things she says blow my mind. The things she understand give me a better appreciation for a child’s growing brain.
It’s hard to know what they are thinking and what they know when they don’t talk. But once that talking box start up, oh my there is no stopping it.
The cutest things here are always said after a nap or in the morning. It’s like a chatterbox. The second her eye open she starts telling me stories: things she saw in her dream (I assume), things she wants to do, things she wants me to do, things she is reminiscing about.
I try my best to remember and then email them to myself when I can. I often forget. We would be at the playground, my phone would be dead, I will try to remember all the funny/cute things she said but by the time we are home, I only remember a few of the sayings.
So here is what I’ve got from the last week or two.
- Waking up…
“I got dinosaur bone in my hand. Oh-oh! Now it’s in my bed” - While breastfeeding and choking on breastmilk….
“Oops choked on mommy’s boobie!” - I am looking for a phone because she asked to call daddy…
“Mama say can’t find phone. Silly momma. Phone is in the offa (office)” - Hears our cat meowing while trying to fall asleep…
“Mama hav to pet kitten. Kitten get happy. “ - Before bedtime, talking about Lavanila diaper rash cream that we call “butt cream”…
“Put butt cream on. Make peepee happy” - After I come back with a new haircut (without saying anything to her about it)…
“Mommy cut hair. Mommy hair is nice and shiny.” (we were really surprised at the use of the word “shiny” because we have never used it in that capacity and in general it’s not a word we use a lot) - Struggling with something…
“Cant do it now now (right now)! Only mommy can do it” She says that a lot and in such a cute voice, it’s one of my favorite phrases.
- Reading Dr Seuss about how borfin goes shlump every night…
” Mommy hab to fix shlump like this. Hab to go to one more store to buy borfin. Momma Hab to go store and buy more borfin!!!!” - “Don’t worry, Momma, I’m doctor. Got to find a band-aid.“
- Lexi “wrote” her first song. At first we thought she was just singing random things, but then the next day she repeated it word for word refining to better sentences. Then the next day she did it again. When finally we realized, she came up with a song. A real song that she can sing over and over again without changing words. It goes like this:
“I like for car.
I like for bus.
I like mommy and daddy and Yaya.
I like mommy pick up and kiiiiiiiiiiiss heeeeeeeer cheeeeeeeeek”
She does the last “her cheek” with the sweetest smile on her face. I seriously laugh every time she does it. - So after about a week or so singing that song, she came up with new words for it.
“I like cucumber I like strawberry
I like water I like milk.
And mommy too.
And daddy.
I like mommy pick me up and and kiss ooooon heeeeeeer cheeeeeeeeeek.”
- While riding a bike to the playground…
“Birdie in the tree fall down. You ok. I gotcha!” - Then at the playground, seeing a bird…
“Birdie fly really high up in the sky, looking for food and mommy. Mommy says time to go bedtime. Birdie say no, go paygound.“ - While I am cleaning up, she asks to play. I tell her that I am cleaning up and need to finish. She answers:
“Mama, you make house really pretty” - Seeing our cat run out into the backyard…
“Kitten you all dirty? Have to clean up.
First gotta go around….
Kitten come here. You all dirty. Momma come get kitten – kitten run” - When she asks for something we don’t have at home (usually food), we often say “Sweetie, we are out. We will go to the store and buy more”. She quickly caught onto that and is using it every time something is missing…
“Hab to buy new one. Hab to go to the store to buy new one.” - Daniel Tiger has an episode about not giving up and trying until you get better. She really took to this lesson and instead of freaking out when she can’t do something, she now sings “Try Try Try and Try it again. Till you get BETTE..” and then finishes it with “HEEEEER”. Really the song just has “Betteeee-er” in a long note, but she thinks BETTE and HER (-ER) are two different words and sings them that way. It’s so hilarious!
- I think she was on my phone and it ran out of battery, or maybe she saw my phone lying around and picked it up, I can’t remember for sure. But she starts calling me..
“Momma, momma!!!” I come over and ask what the matter is. She  says in a singsongy voice “Grown ups come back…” and then adds “And fix my phone”.
- So one day, we were out of some food she wanted, I think it was almond milk and when I told her we were out, she ran up to me and exclaimed:
” Momma, go to the store!” Then realized her mistake in the fact that daddy usually goes grocery shopping so that he could shop without someone destroying the whole store and mommy stays with Lexi, and she goes to correct herself:
“No momma, daddy go to the store to buy new one. Only daddy can go to the store.” - Early on, she picked up on the song “Old McDonald”, especially words “Something here, something there, something everywhere”. So one day she applied it to boobies, while asking to nurse. She went pinting “Boobie here, boobie there, boobie everywhere” Spreading her arms wide when saying “everywhere”. That in itself was cute enough.
- Then recently she was asking for Daniel Tiger and I said we didn’t have it or I didn’t know where it was ( I don’t remember why), so she goes pointing:
“Daniel Tiger here, Daniel Tiger there, Daniel Tiger everywhere!”…then she pauses and announces “Like boobie!” - She often details what she wants to do after she wakes up. It usually goes something like this:
“After nap, go to the gym. After gym, go to new gym. After new gym, go to the lidaberry (library)” and so on and so forth. But the thing is she actually plans it out, tells me exactly where she wants to go. Like I tell her we will be going to the beach after her nap, she will add “After go to the beach, go to the pooo-yo (pool)!” So then I might add “We’ll have to eat first!” So she will amend “After nap, go to eat. After eat, go beach, after beach, go poo-yo” - She has been obsessed with traffic lights (“taffa wight”). So every time we ride in the car, she screams out
“Mommy, got to find a Taffa Wight. Wed means GO, Geen means TOP, Orange means Warning! Momma, Taffa Wight coming up! Hab to find a WED Taffa Wight” - Looking at a messy carpet ( crumbs, pieces of paper, cat hair), runs up to the robot vacuum, pointing at it…
“Momma, have to put on and make vacuum ALL THIS MESS!”
There are a million more things she says that make me go “Aaaaaawwww” on daily basis. I am hoping to continue writing them down, as this was incredibly amazing to write at this moment. In a few years, I’ll be bawling reading these.
I know you said she gets camera shy but you’d like to have stuff like this recorded. I felt the same way and I realized that the voice memo app is a great tool for that. You can just set it to record and set the phone down and voila! You can have a normal interaction and still get this preciousness recorded. I don’t know if it’s the best way to share things on the blog (although I bet a video with pictures from different times with her talking over it would be so adorable!) but it sounds so priceless and later you’ll just love having that tiny voice immortalized.
I’ve done it with a few things like when she is up from nap but usually I’m busy interacting to even remember about. Aside from the fact that most of the time I don’t have my phone on me.
I have a little collection now and will continue doing what I can recording it.
Also it’s not like she goes :” ok mommy I’m about to say something totally cute so her your camera ready”
Most things are one time sentences and they come with no warning.
I do have that song recorded though :)))
Oh, PLEASE post the audio/video of the song!!! It sounds so adorable!
Will do when I put together all her videos eventually 😉
SO precious !!!!
She has the most gorgeous hair too !
Aww! How adorable!! They are just so lovely at this age x
Ya know, I never knew 2 year olds could intentionally be funny, just being funny because of the silly things they say. But C is quite the jokster! It’s so neat seeing their brain work. I need to start writing things down so I don’t forget all the crazy things this kid comes up with.
You def. should. I usually try to remember it until I can get to my phone and email it to myself
I was a bit surprised too, to discover humour at this age! DD likes to say silly things just to get me to laugh (and sometimes to amuse herself) ???? I haven’t written much down either (save for what’s on FB or IG), but I think that to do so might be pretty labour-intensive since DD talks a lot and as it was, I found it hard to write down all of her “first words” back when I was blogging her monthly updates.
I do love the increased ability to communicate, though! It’s so much easier to know how to meet her needs when she can tell them to me!
Yes, it’s really hard to get everything down. I try to do just the funny cute sayings that I can remember. But even as I got this post ready, I had to go back and add 5 new cute sentences that I managed to write down that she said in the 2 days before it published.
Oh this is so cute! When she says you make the house pretty…. Awww… Can’t wait for my son to start talking and discover all the things he has on his mind!!
I’m curious about the use of the word “peepee” instead of the technical terms in the diaper cream quote (is she still using diapers at night, then, I assume? She’s been potty-learned for a while, if I remember right?). I realize a lot of parents don’t get super technical (i.e. using vulva instead of vagina) but my understanding is that the big push recently is for using the correct terminology. I have several friends from Europe/Eastern Europe (France, Czech Republic and Ukraine, to be specific) who were all completely flabbergasted when they found out parents here in the States used cutesy words to describe those areas, so I was surprised to see it used by someone from overseas (especially you often talk about your embrace of sexuality and body confidence, which I LOVE and hope to raise my kids with!). I also had to laugh at “peepee” since I’ve never heard it as a euphamism for little girls, only little boys. ha! 🙂
That’s just the term we use and have always used. We call her butt “poopie”, too. I like it. I’ve always loved these two words.
When she is a little older, she’ll learn all the proper terminology when we have different talks about her body parts when she asks (or doesn’t ask). They have little to do with embracing your body, as that is more behavioral and she gets plenty of examples of it from me, which is how kids learn.
Oh and it might have to do with the Russian equivalents of these words used for little kids (under school age) which sound very similar and just as cute.
Those little hipster glasses are too cute for words! I want a pair for myself! Love them.
Lexi’s hair is very early Brigitte Bardot! I do realize that the comparison is not appropriate for the 2 year old, but I can’t help it. Cute bed head, are you sure you didn’t style it? She IS adorable!
I am not around a lot of 2 year olds (except for mine), so it is interesting to discover that they all talk about the same things apparently. Like, “only daddy/mommy/etc can do certain things”, making up songs, need to go shopping buy more of something, talking about sequencing of events, what they want to do, etc. My child does exactly the same things 🙂 They are fascinating at all ages, and I can’t wait to see what happens next!
How is Lexi doing with speaking Russian? My child understands everything I tell her, but rarely speaks Russian to me. She does use a lot of russian words in the English sentences when she replies to me or is talking to me specifically. She does the same to my husband, but using the Portuguese words.
I love the developing sense of humor too. It is obviously not super funny, but they love to crack themselves up. I am amused at the “potty” jokes! I swear I did not teach her! My daughter is very aware of her “farts” (we do not use the actual word “fart”, we use a Portuguese euphemism for it), and if asked “do you need to go potty, honey, because you are “passing wind” and it looks like you are getting ready to make a poop…?” she promptly answers that she did not make a “fart”, it was a … cat, or her sister, or daddy, or someone else she can think of. Then laughs happily. I am not thinking we have a stand up comedian on our hands, but she does try.
Aaaawww I love hearing that! I love hearing that other toddlers say the same things – that is just so amazing that their development and interests are “pre-programmed”.
Russian; oh boy, i was hoping we’d be further alon at this point, but i guess it’s slowly getting better. We are exactly like you guys. She understands everything, but speaks English. I recently started trying to correct her and ask her to say things in Russian. Not for all, but some sentences, when I remember. And to my HUGE surprise, she tries to say them in Russian.
Like, we were biking and she saw our house, so she says “That’s our house!”. I say “Yes, it is. Can you please say it in Russian?”, so she goes “Eto Our Dom!” 🙂 lolol
The older she gets the better it will get, I know it. Plus my mom will be here before she is three, right at the time when it’s important to press the whole Russian issue while their language development is still accelerating.
Our little guy is just a bit older than Lexi and does the same thing. There are a few nouns he only knows in Russian but he combines them with. English connectors to make for lots of funny sentences. He taught all the daycare ladies to say “??????” instead of warm (and my dad too). It’s adorable but we wish he’d speak more russian phrases.
OMG – the pic of her in the red glasses is the cutest ever.
Love those red glasses and everything Lexi says sounds heart meltingly cute. You have mentioned before how much you both enjoy Olivia and Daniel Tiger books, do you ever let her watch the videos also? If so, would you say that shows like this are good supplemental ways to increase vocabulary? We are not big on watching television with our 21 month old but I was wondering about any benefits if the child watches in moderation? Thanks!
Hey, Kay!!
We have actually never read/watched Olivia, I have just seen the books around. Daniel Tiger on the other hand is a staple and recommend both the show and the books to anyone who will listen.
Before Lexi and before she was old enough, I was so against any TV. In fact, we have not owned a TV for years now. I blindly believed what I read in books, but like with everything, once it was time to apply it to real life it was completely amended by my daughter’s personality. She REALLY strives on media. She learned both Russian and English alphabet from the iphone apps at 16 months. We didn’t do Daniel Tiger shows until about that age, but it has been a great learning resource. You can read more about what I decided about media use and its benefits (And disadvantages) here
So in short, not only has she increased her vocabulary from Daniel Tiger shows but she has effectively learned useful concepts like potty training, trying and not giving up, sharing, helping out, grown ups returning and a ton more. Some people will argue that parents can just as well teach their toddlers that, but even though Daniel Tiger has been a supplement to what we teach her, she somehow always uses the Daniel Tiger lesson (cluebus!). They are just more interested in those characters.
I would definitely recommend it for a 21 months old in moderation and possibly to watch together for the first few times to explain a few things. Everyone who I told about Daniel Tiger cannot believe how much their kid has learned from the show.
It really is an amazing help for them during a somewhat difficult period of adjustment and understanding the world.
Aside from DT, she also watches Curious George and Tinkerbell, but only because I was able to get them in Russian and I am trying to expose her to Russian as much as possible, otherwise I wouldn’t recommend them as they are simple entertainment. We also read lots of Curious George books so that’s kind of where the show in Russian comes in.
All in all, I would say she watches about 30 minutes a day, some days none at all, other days 30 minutes twice a day, most of it on car rides when she is tired of counting traffic lights (it takes us 30 minutes to get anywhere in town, so we do a lot of driving on some days). But even with short spurts here and there she has been able to pick up so much: songs, words, concepts, phrases. And it’s scaffolding onto itself. What she has learned from me previously is reinforced by Daniel Tiger and visa versa.
Thank you for your reply, it was so helpful! 🙂
Thank you, Elena, I really enjoyed reading this post, so cute and funny :)) Made me think I have to write down all those cute saying after my son as well. You are so right, kids can amaze us every day! 🙂
Lexi is especially cute on these photos 🙂
Do you speak Russian and English to her? We try to raise a bilingual kid by having each parent talking to him in his/her mother tongue (Russian and Estonian). Every time I open your blog I secretly hope you have written about bilingual upbringing :)))
I speak both Russian and English. I mean to speak Russian only, but with English being my primary language, as well as my language of emotions, I often can’t help it but default to it. Since I think in English, I often have to translate things into Russian in my head before I speak, which makes it really difficult with a very fast active toddler. So right now I am trying to at least repeat everything I say in Russian, when I forget to use Russian to begin with.
I want to write about bilingual upbringing but I am afraid I have not much to contribute to such post aside from “it’s freaking hard, and I am tryyyyyying” 🙂
:))
Does Lexy mix Russian words in her speech sometimes? When my Daniel speaks only those who know both languages can understand him. Only lately has he started making some difference 🙂
Even if you think you cannot contribute much, I still believe this topic will be very interesting to many of your readers 😉
I am sorry for misspelling Lexi’s name!
No biggie 🙂
She does use certain words that I use mostly in Russian as well and of course she mixes them in english sentences.
When I ask her to speak Russian, most of the time she will do so and will substitute the words she can’t remember with English ones.
Ok, I’ll try to write something 🙂 I have so many posts that I am trying to get out, but I know this one is of interest.
Maybe I will wait a month or two though, because I am making a bigger push now, so that might make a bigger difference so I will have more experience to write about.
Also I just bought Daniel Tiger in Russian, so I will be a nazi about her only watching Russian shows 🙂
This is so cute. I love hearing little ones give their rendition of whats going on. I gave my Abby some of my fruit infused water yesterday and she sipped it, looked at me and said “mama, I gon’t gike it.” 17 months!!! So cute
17 months!!!! That’s amazing!