martina and what seems to be some kind of a vocabulary

now that martina has started to understand the concept of telephones, it has become increasingly harder to actually talk to the person you want to talk to in that household.

me: hello?

marteens: hi! hi!

me: marteens! where's mom?

marteens: hi!!! mom?

me: yes, mom! please call your mom!

marteens: bye!!! *hangs up*

in spite of these slight inconveniences, talking to her on the phone is an absolute joy. for one thing, it's refreshing to get real answers to simple questions. for instance, when i ask "what are you doing?" i get answers like:

- "coughing! ... cough cough"
- "jumping! ... ung ... ung ..." ("ung" being an approximation of the cute grunt she makes while jumping)
- "working!" (i have no idea about her line of work, so don't ask)

i also particularly enjoy children at marteens' age (2 years old) because only about 50% of her spoken language bears any resemblance to actual human words. and even when her words sound vaguely recognizable, you just never know if she actually means what she says.

i shouldn't really be surprised. juancho (martina's older brother) gave me an equally hard time when he was a toddler.

just the other day, martina and i were watching the backyardigans (is there anything cuter than a backyardigan?), and the episode was about haunted houses. every now and then, i'd hear her exclaim, "goats! goats!" ... then it dawned on me that there were no actual four-legged bearded mammals on that particular show. she was talking about GHOSTS.

me: marteens, can you say GHOSTS?

marteens: GOATS!

me: g..g..ohhsssttt ...sss

marteens: goats! scoopy goats!

thanks to my medical education, i figured out that she wanted to say "spooky ghosts" but fell a bit short. after a few more attempts at correcting her, "scoopy" started to sound correct and i gave up.

i guess with maturity comes the art of letting go. martina thinks giraffes are called "wions" and identifies the color green as "wed". i honestly don't know if i want to do anything about it. maybe next year. as of now, i'm more concerned that i'm starting to think "scoopy" sounds better than the real word.

ooooooo. scoopy.