Preschool Lexicon

What follows are some the more recent episodes in the journey of language acquisition/mastery. I suppose this will, perhaps, be the final chapter in what I think of fondly as 'the lexicon series' (for earlier chapters see here and here).

Evelyn is incredibly verbal... she talks constantly, and she's quite articulate. (And if she's not talking, she's singing.) When she and Jess are playing trains, for example, whereas he'll be quietly pushing his trains around not saying too much at all and Evelyn will keeping up a constant stream of chatter/song. She's not so much talking to or with Jess as she is just just sort of narrating the events in the universe as she sees them at that moment. So, she'll talk about what's happening on the tracks, who's going where, how long the train is, who's mad, who's frustrated, what princesses might be involved, etc., etc.

For all of her verbal acuity, she still makes some funny mistakes. For example: she's not yet mastered pronouns: "Them going to get them coats", she'll say. Or "them going them house." And, the other day, she really threw me when she said: "They not talking nice to them chuthers". Who? I say. "Them chuthers!" She also frequently reports on the "sun going down, and the sunset coming up." Also, it turns out that when people feel sick to their stomach they sometimes get "valarhea" or they might have to "promit" (and, once when Jess vomited in the church nursery, she reported to us that he "popped"). Then, there was a few days right after Christmas when, playing with her new (Christmas) kitchen set, she kept talking about her "fukkit".  What?!  Eventually, we figured out that a 'fukkit' is what we ourselves prefer to call a "whisk". For some reason, this has been a kind of default sound for Evelyn (she once reported to Lucy (our 13 year old niece) that her stuffed animal was named "fukka"... you should have seen the size of Lucy's eyes when she heard that!). And then there's this song she was singing while trick-or-treating at the zoo a few months ago:


Evelyn sometimes calls me "honey". As in: "sure, honey, I'll do that", "Ok, honey". She likes to call Brent "daddy-oats". She calls Kermit and his ilk "muffits" and corrects me when I say "muppets". Lastly, she always pronounces 'with' as 'wit'. "Can I go wit you to the store?"; "Will you come wit me?"

Jesse may not quite as precocious as Evie when it comes to talking (though to be sure, he's not a quiet kid by any stretch!), I can think of fewer stories of verbal missteps--or at least I can't really think of any that are distinctive just to him. Except this one: he frequently speaks about the transmuhpation museum--you know, where all the trains are. He does have a few cute/funny little verbal tics, however.  So, he'll say, for example:

"Whhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat are you doing, mom?" Whhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy did he say that?"

And when I say draw out, I mean really draw out! I think it's a way of holding his place in the conversation till he can think of exactly what he wants to say. Also, he has a habit of starting every single sentence addressed to me with "Hey mom". I hear this phrase over and over and over. Even if I'm right across from him looking at him he'll preface what he wants to say with 'Hey mom, ..." There have been times when I say "Jess, you don't need to say 'Hey mom'. How about just say what you want to say. I promise, I'm listening." And he's say. "Ok. Hey mom,...."

I'm glad to say, this one seems to be less frequent. (Or am I just used to it?)

Among the cute sayings he shares with his sister, however, are the following. First, for some reason, both kids start their prayers by saying: "God. Thank you for all you for comin'..." (?) Every. Time.  At mealtime prayers. At bedtime prayers. Prayers in Sunday school. They always start their prayers with this locution. They've been doing this for about as long as they've been saying prayers (we started last summer) and I have no idea where it came from. Jess frequently follows it with this: "thank you for the life". I love that one too.

They both continue to call corn on the cob, "corn on the park". They know better now, but they'll still sometime slip. They have only recently stopped saying 'scabetti' (for spaghetti). And for both of them, 'l' is still pronounced as a 'y'. So, each day, we have Granoya for breakfast, and we might talk about how yion roars, and how we yove each other. And, frequently, 'r' sounds like 'w'. (For an example see this post.)

They also both refer to their Memaw as 'hunnybunny'.