My Chatty Little Princess

My little girl Rachel is learning how to talk already. When we teach her to say certain words, she can parrot them although not exactly accurate. Pretty fast for a 1 year old. My boys weren't that good at this age. Some people say girls speak faster. I think, it is due to 2 factors.. the person who takes care of her and that she is the 3rd child in the family. My maid speaks to her alot, sings to her too. Rachel will respond and try to parrot. She'd even sing along .. some key words la and lotsa baby babbling :). She loves music. She would sway and rock when we sing to her or when she hears music that she likes. Being the 3rd child, she has playmates - her brothers. It helps a lot as kids tend to follow their older siblings.

She knows already how to get what she wants. She calls her kakak 'Ti Ti' ...her version for 'Siti' :). Like today, she said 'Ti Ti.. bao bao...mum mum' .. translated means 'Siti, carry me. I want to eat'. She knows to tall you when she wants to go 'pooh pooh' (pass motion, the big one). She doesn't pooh pooh in her pampers any more.. unless we are too slow :) She knows how to differentiate 'mum mum' to mean food other than milk and 'nen nen' as milk. Sorry these are all the family baby talk that we teach our babies. Easier for them to say. May sound like babbles to you still ;p. Other words she knows are..

'bir bir' as in bird bird

'cicak' as in lizard in Malay

'Daddy' .. super accurate

'chor chor' ..cantonese for sitting down. Once she dragged a chair and said to my maid 'chor chor', patting the chair :)

'fish'

'poh poh' .. grandmother

'there there' .. means she wants to go there

'ding dong'

'no'

.. and quite a bit more.

As for 'Mummy', she knows but she is being very mischievous. Just refused to call me Mummy. Kept calling me 'Daddy' and his father also 'Daddy'. She would point to let you know who she is calling. I would correct her and tell her to call me Mummy. She will challenge 'Daddy'. Then I will say 'Mummy. Then she would challenge louder 'Daddy' and it goes on. All these time, she has a smile on her face. Till today, the naughty girl is still calling me 'Daddy'. It is not because she doesn't know what is Mummy or doesn't know how to say. My maid refers to me as Mummy when she talks to her and she knows. And I have heard her saying 'Mummy' when she didn't know I was around. Naughty or what :) She's my sweetheart :)