Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Look Who's Talking

As first time parents, every little milestone in Jesse's development is a big deal. But the one thing that we anticipate the most is when he utters his first words. What will he say, when he's ready to say something?

For a few months now, Jesse been gurgling and cooing a lot. On a good day, he's practically having a conversation with us with his little "Eee-dooo" and "Pehhhhh" and the occasional "Bleargle" and "Fla-dooodle". Okay, I made those words up, but you get the picture. He's got a pretty extensive repertoire of sounds which may or may not mean anything. But as parents, we're proud all the same. In any case we've been keeping our ears open for some real words, like "Superfluous" or "Regurgitate". :) Baby Oli, who's a couple of months older than Jesse already started calling her Daddy, "Da-Da" a couple on months back. Though boys generally pick up speech later than girls, we're hopeful that it's anytime soon.

One day, some three months back, Jesse was crying to be fed when he suddenly made a sound. "Honey, he said MILK," Mae was excited. "Are you sure?" I was skeptical. Jesse was, after all, only just 4 months old at the time. "Well, it might have been MOM," Mae rationalised. "Or it might have been MOVE," I teased. "As in, 'MOVE your ass Mommy, I'm starving!!" Of course that remark was met swiftly with a bop on the head.

Lately, Jesse seems to be at it again. This time around, even though the words are not quite words, the timing is no longer random. For instance, whenever I drink beer or anything out of a can, Jesse will give me a short, sharp, "Uhhnn!" to tell me he wants a sip. And if I ignore him, he'll repeat himself a little louder this time. He's also got a designated phrase for milk these days. In between his cries of hunger, we sometimes hear him say "Mum-mum," which is our word for food.

Then again, he could just be calling us "Numbnuts!" Who knows? We'll just have to wait a little longer, I guess.

16 comments:

  1. that would be the non-alcoholic kind?
    Our boy has somehow also picked up the 'mum-mum' phrase although we are dumbfounded on the source coz neither wife nor I use that. w e i r d.....

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  2. dont know laa kan. nowdays Amir's fav. word (can I call it a word?) is, atah.. aaaatah.. if we want to transform it into patah, nothing was broken. hehe..

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  3. I read somewhere that research shows, in terms of early speech development, baby tends to make sounds that starts with 'm' (in terms of mouth muscle control etc). So perasan mamas out there, "mama" could mean anything. But I still take it as my baby's first word;).
    Funny how a lot of babies have certain favourite 'words' that they like to utter over and over and after some time, when their speech is more developed, the words just dissapear!

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  4. James, if you can record it down, I so miss this stage, now I almost take them for granted when listen they say proper words, and I almost forgot the thrill listen to their first word, until I hear other baby cooing.

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  5. My cousin's son was walking & talking before his 1st birthday.
    He's about 1.5 years old. Now he can name most of the uncle's and aunt's and also say words like "Anaconda".. it seems his vocab is way advanced for his age. Plus he's constructing a lot of sentences. Amazing kid.. but who'd wish to have a kid talking so much in the future?
    Guess what? Both his parents are trained as lawyers.. One practices Law the other became a TQM Manager. Lotsa talking.. ha ha..no surprise.

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  6. Hmm ... boys mature late huh. Kind of wonder if God intended it that way, so girls can take advantage of their stupidity and reign supreme over all mankind. And men will degenerate into babbling idiots for our pleasure ... *dream bubble pops* Hmm ... where was I?

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  7. He's jut toying with you.
    I bet when you're not looking, he turns to total strangers and tells them how clueless his parents really are... :lol:

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  8. Hehehe..my nephew's first proper word is "dirty" and says it the ang moh way.."dir-dy". Dunno where he picked that accent from because everyone speaks Manglish at home, even his daddy.
    I'm sure Jesse will pick up speech some time. Don't worry. Let him learn himself and when he says his first word...it will be the most amazing sound u guys will ever hear :)

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  9. Husband: Jesse prefers the alchoholic type. Hahahha!
    Hazel, maybe he's trying to say "Astro"! :lol:
    Mama22Beas, a lot of friends tell me their kids' first conscious words have been "Da-da"! Weird isn't it?
    That's a good idea, Twinsmom. Thanks.
    Sounds like you have a little lawyer in the making, Paulos!
    Hahahha, for some reason, I think you may have something there, Gwen.
    Sashi: Why, that little....!!!!
    We're anxiously waiting, Cherry. :)

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  10. can't wait for jesse to call mama and dada eh?? :p my boiboi called mahmah (granma) first!
    aiyoh we both were like cheh! later he called me mama and one week on, dada... his dada cried!

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  11. Mama22 ... I think the term is overgeneralization. They learn something and apply it to everything around them because they haven't figured out how things are different sounding yet. XD All babies do that ...

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  12. Ehhehe jesse the cutey - i love hearing kids say mum mum
    Ehhh all gals fast meh? - my bro spoke at 7 months - I waited till nearly 2 - my parents actually thought i was mute hehehhee

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  13. you mean the first word wasn't "shit"? ;)

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  14. Hi James...I know this is not the right place to be asking the following question but why in the world was the movie 'Finding Neverland' banned in Malaysia? I just found out from the checkout guy at my local Blockbuster store that the movie was banned in Malaysia. I am really curious to know why it was banned. Tried searching the web but couldn't find any info about the banning.

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  15. :lol: BabeKL, I fully expect to cry when Jesse calls me Da-da.
    That's gotta be true, Gwen. Jesse goes "mumumumum" for no reason sometimes! :)
    Whoa, 2 years old Visithra? So do you talk a lot now to make up for loss time?
    :lol: It might as well be, Belacan!
    They ban all kinds of things here for the silliest of reasons, Revlon.

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  16. My mom says - once I was worried youd never talk, when you started I wished you never did ;ppp

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