Lily Lexicon

My parents have said that the personalities of my brother and I were present, even when we were very small children, and there are many things about us that don't surprise them, given our manner of being and interests back then. So I find myself subconsciously find myself trying to gauge my own daughter this way, trying to find a pattern behind the things she finds fascinating now and extrapolating them into what she might become one day.

If you spend any time with my daughter, you'll notice first and foremost that she's fascinated by numbers, even more so than letters. I haven't done the research to see if that's something that most kids are likely to do or not, but from my limited knowledge it seems to set her apart. Thanks to the work of her mother, primarily, she's already able to recognize numbers and loves calling them out whenever she sees them... in fact, there are many times when she'll call out a number, and it will take both Amy and me several seconds of looking around to see where that number is. But it's always somewhere.

I should also point out that Lily's favorite TV shows are Team Umizoomi (on Nickelodeon, and deals with numbers, patterns, and problem solving) and Deal or No Deal (which has more big, shiny numbers than any other show out there).

Since I started this post intending to put together a list of words that Lily knows, I'll start with the obvious:

wuh = 1 (this is the hardest number for her to recognize, probably because it's just a line)
teoo = 2
fwee = 3
foh = 4 (another one she has some trouble with, I think because there are two commonly-used ways of being written)
FI! = 5 (I capitalize this because always says it loudly... it might be her favorite next to "NY!")
see-see = 6/7 (I think she's a little fuzzy on the difference between the two, or maybe the second "see" is her trying to make the "x" sound of "six" and forgetting about 7 altogether)
ayt = 8
NI! = 9 (like I said... I'm impressed that she can tell the difference between 2,6, and 9 so easily, because when you think about it, written out they're basically the same shape with different orientations
Zeeo = 0 (clearly, she still confuses O's and 0's, but give her time!)
Teh = 10

And she sometimes can get 11 (evah) and even 12 (twe), but sometimes she just singles out one of the numbers or says them individually.

So that's the beginning of the Lily lexicon. Some highlights of other things she knows how to say:

Hi (probably the most commonly used word in all of kid-dom)
Wa = water
Cheeo = Cheerios (her favorite between-meal snack)
Na = banana
Bwee-bwee = blueberry
Gee-bee = green bean (she *loves* these, eats them like candy, can't figure that out)
Chee = cheese
Beh-bee dah = Babydoll (both the kind she carries around with her and the kind in the display cabinet upstairs)
Co = Ice cream cone
Dahg = Dog
Ma = Grandma (either one of my or Amy's mothers)
Pa = Grandpa (my father)
Geh-dee-dee = Granddaddy (Amy's father)
Ovo = oval, the shape she most consistently recognizes

She's just starting to put together phrases and little sentences too.

I go = I want to go (usually repeated a lot when we're getting on our shoes and jackets and packing her bag), which goes hand in hand with...
Ray! = Ready! (as in, I'm ready to go!)
I dow = I want down
I da = I want to dance (when musical numbers come on TV, she likes to be picked up and swung around -- sometimes she'll sing loudly and randomly enough to obliterate the music entirely, other times she just likes watching her shadow move around on the wall)
Wa in eer = Put water in here (she surprised us both by saying this on several occasions while holding up a cup)

And, of course, there are some things she's picked up entirely on her own:

Tee = TV
Dee-uh (or) Dee-wee = Deal (as in "On No Deal", did I mention it's one of her favorite shows?)
Fah = Fox (twice she's gone up to the set during American Idol and pointed to the logo in the corner, completely unprompted)
Voh = Vogue (which she said after hearing the end of Madonna's song of the same name)
Geeo = Geo, one of the characters on Team Umizoomi
Bah = Bot, one of the characters on Team Umizoomi
Mee-ee = Milli, you guessed it, one of the characters on Team Umizoomi

And a few things from Amy's latest copy of Food Network Magazine:
Buh-guh = burger (the latest issue features an awesome-looking hamburger on the front)
Guy-Guy = Guy Fieri, the only person she doesn't see in real life who she consistently recognizes -- what's that about?
Wuhk = Network (she actually recognizes the logo!)

But I can't stress enough how much of her progress in numbers and letters is thanks to Amy, who keeps quizzing her on them. But seeing how naturally Lily has taken to them, I wonder if she'll be an engineer or a mathermatician... whatever it is, even if it's some inclination I don't even recognize yet, I'll look back on this time and say that it's no surprise. None at all.