Whatcha Talking 'bout Maeve?

As Maeve nears her third birthday, her vocabulary has shot into the stratosphere. There's virtually nothing she can't express, and even though she doesn't know all the words we use, she seems to understand a lot more than we'd like. Before they fade away, we want to remember some of her idiosyncratic speech patterns:

• "beppus"—breakfast
• "eat my waffles all gone"
• "I want one bana—the whole bana." For some reason she always says this about bananas.
• "baafud"—bathtub
• "tomahno"—tomorrow
• "cool"—pool
• "strolyer"—stroller
• "all bofe a dem"—"all both of them." Somehow, both is almost always preceded by all.
• and maybe the cutest: "Decwin" for Declan.

And Declan, not to be left out, is slowly starting to "talk." Well, the only thing he says even semi-clearly is "firetruck" when he hears any emergency vehicle. He also says "Dada" (of course... sigh) and some sort of "all done" and "more" when eating. And as of last week, he says "deet doo" when you hand him something—we think it's his version of "thank you." You can hear it at the end of this quick exchange about peaches:



And if you want to hear Maeve at her legalistic best, listen to her explain how the spilled water is not her fault:

—posted by T