toddler drabble
Bao is approaching the two-and-a-half year old mark (where does the time go?!) and her language skills have really been exploding recently. Just before she was two I was a little concerned because she was still not putting words together and I sometimes had to interpret for her because no one else (her father included) could understand what she was saying.
In the last few weeks though, she's picked up lots of new words and phrases. Several of these are clearly attributed to her brother, who in turn has picked up a lot of British phrases from school. The rest of it come from television-watching. She definitely watches a lot more telly compared to her brother at this age. I guess that as a first-time stay-home parent, I had a lot more time and energy back then to keep The Bun off screens. Bao watches TV because her brother does, and he watches TV because his poor beleaguered mother needs the break. As a result, Bao is much, much more exposed to TV culture (which is CBeebies in our household) than he ever was.
For example, her favourite shows are Mister Maker, Something Special, Sarah and Duck, and Let's Play. When she watches Mister Maker she chants along to the 'I Am A Shape!' song, and she happily shouts 'scissors are SHARP!' every time she spies one. We are all Sarah and Duck fans at home and even have one of the books - if you have never seen an episode, watch this for some of their 'quackiest' moments, and you will realise why the show has more adult fans than children. I think Bao especially loves this show because her lovey is a duck too, and when she's in a good mood she will roll around in bed with her duck making quacking noises. The dialogue she has memorised goes like this.
This is Sarah.
Sarah says HELLO! [yes, all caps because she shouts this.]
This is duck.
Duck says QUACK!
[cue gleeful chuckling and twenty repeats of this in a row]
The more I see her parrot phrases from TV shows the more I wonder why people keep saying TV is so bad. I mean, I totally understand the point about age-appropriate shows, and not mindlessly watching it for hours every day, and I think TV mixed with insidious advertising is evil, but Bao is my second child and I can see that the amount she has learned from watching TV is tremendous. The Bun barely watched TV until he was about three or four, and while he is clearly not dumb, he is still very innocent and inexperienced in terms of understanding classic literary/TV/movie tropes like good vs. evil, the final dramatic conflict before the happy ending, slapstick etc. I was surprised to find that this affected his comprehension skills when reading books assigned in school. His teacher, for example, recently pointed out that he didn't know what a wicked witch was or how magic spells could work, and I had to explain that we haven't read many fairy tales so of course there is a gap in his knowledge. (We're remedying this, though!) When he first started school here, he had difficulty understanding and connecting with his (mostly British) classmates because he had no common interests, being totally unexposed to Disney movies, Star Wars, and the like. After six months on a steady diet of CBeebies, he now shares common ground with his friends and is fitting in much better.
Sorry kids, your parents (mostly) mean well.
But back to what Bao has been saying so far. Much of this is just drabble to people who don't interact with her daily but I want to record it because I find toddler-speak very cute and truly hilarious.
1. When I'm out without Bao, I look forward to coming home to her because it's so cute. She will hear the front door open and I will hear her heavy footsteps running towards me before she appears, shouting out 'good to see you!' and launching herself into my knees for a sticky hug. I did wonder where she picked up this phrase and it's probably from the Something Special theme song which goes: 'Hello, hello / How are you? / Hello, hello / It's good to see you.'
2. While skyping with her grandmother (my mother):
Grandma: Shall we sing a song together?
Bao: No!
Grandma: I'll sing a song for you. [starts singing]
Bao [turning away]: Boring!
3. Again, on Skype with her grandmother who is talking about tantrums.
Grandma: you shouldn't cry so much, right? Crying is for babies. You're a big girl, right?
Bao: No. Little girl!
[Grandma is left momentarily speechless.]
4. Driving to a playdate at a house we've never been to before, my GPS screws up and we get completely lost in some random French village. Adding to the confusion in the car, my phone battery has decided that it is too cold and stops working so I can't even call to get directions.
Bao [with totally feigned dramatic inflections directly copied from TV]: oh no! what are we going to do?
5. Walking through the slightly dim Ikea warehouse (you know, the bit before you hit the cashiers), The Bun starts talking about how it's like being in a deep dark cave and that we're explorers on an adventure.
Bao [grabbing her brother's hand]: Don't worry Korkor, Meimei's here.
6. After I tell Bao that we have to get ready to go out to run an errand.
Bao [again, very dramatically]: Oh, bother!
7. Today, we walked by a cafe which had put its outdoor seating on the pavement.
Bao [stopping and rubbing circles over her belly]: So... hungry!
For the record, she had a big lunch just one hour earlier so this was a purely Pavlovian response.
It's great to now be able to have simple conversations with her, and her strong opinions are rapidly becoming more comprehensible and therefore harder to ignore. She has a dramatic flair (not surprising, considering her parentage) to match her dramatic tantrums but at least she makes up for it by being quite cute (to us, at least). Young children learning how to talk will always be one of my favourite things - the way their language unfolds, and with it, an insight into their minds and their personality.
In the last few weeks though, she's picked up lots of new words and phrases. Several of these are clearly attributed to her brother, who in turn has picked up a lot of British phrases from school. The rest of it come from television-watching. She definitely watches a lot more telly compared to her brother at this age. I guess that as a first-time stay-home parent, I had a lot more time and energy back then to keep The Bun off screens. Bao watches TV because her brother does, and he watches TV because his poor beleaguered mother needs the break. As a result, Bao is much, much more exposed to TV culture (which is CBeebies in our household) than he ever was.
For example, her favourite shows are Mister Maker, Something Special, Sarah and Duck, and Let's Play. When she watches Mister Maker she chants along to the 'I Am A Shape!' song, and she happily shouts 'scissors are SHARP!' every time she spies one. We are all Sarah and Duck fans at home and even have one of the books - if you have never seen an episode, watch this for some of their 'quackiest' moments, and you will realise why the show has more adult fans than children. I think Bao especially loves this show because her lovey is a duck too, and when she's in a good mood she will roll around in bed with her duck making quacking noises. The dialogue she has memorised goes like this.
This is Sarah.
Sarah says HELLO! [yes, all caps because she shouts this.]
This is duck.
Duck says QUACK!
[cue gleeful chuckling and twenty repeats of this in a row]
The more I see her parrot phrases from TV shows the more I wonder why people keep saying TV is so bad. I mean, I totally understand the point about age-appropriate shows, and not mindlessly watching it for hours every day, and I think TV mixed with insidious advertising is evil, but Bao is my second child and I can see that the amount she has learned from watching TV is tremendous. The Bun barely watched TV until he was about three or four, and while he is clearly not dumb, he is still very innocent and inexperienced in terms of understanding classic literary/TV/movie tropes like good vs. evil, the final dramatic conflict before the happy ending, slapstick etc. I was surprised to find that this affected his comprehension skills when reading books assigned in school. His teacher, for example, recently pointed out that he didn't know what a wicked witch was or how magic spells could work, and I had to explain that we haven't read many fairy tales so of course there is a gap in his knowledge. (We're remedying this, though!) When he first started school here, he had difficulty understanding and connecting with his (mostly British) classmates because he had no common interests, being totally unexposed to Disney movies, Star Wars, and the like. After six months on a steady diet of CBeebies, he now shares common ground with his friends and is fitting in much better.
Sorry kids, your parents (mostly) mean well.
But back to what Bao has been saying so far. Much of this is just drabble to people who don't interact with her daily but I want to record it because I find toddler-speak very cute and truly hilarious.
1. When I'm out without Bao, I look forward to coming home to her because it's so cute. She will hear the front door open and I will hear her heavy footsteps running towards me before she appears, shouting out 'good to see you!' and launching herself into my knees for a sticky hug. I did wonder where she picked up this phrase and it's probably from the Something Special theme song which goes: 'Hello, hello / How are you? / Hello, hello / It's good to see you.'
2. While skyping with her grandmother (my mother):
Grandma: Shall we sing a song together?
Bao: No!
Grandma: I'll sing a song for you. [starts singing]
Bao [turning away]: Boring!
3. Again, on Skype with her grandmother who is talking about tantrums.
Grandma: you shouldn't cry so much, right? Crying is for babies. You're a big girl, right?
Bao: No. Little girl!
[Grandma is left momentarily speechless.]
4. Driving to a playdate at a house we've never been to before, my GPS screws up and we get completely lost in some random French village. Adding to the confusion in the car, my phone battery has decided that it is too cold and stops working so I can't even call to get directions.
Bao [with totally feigned dramatic inflections directly copied from TV]: oh no! what are we going to do?
5. Walking through the slightly dim Ikea warehouse (you know, the bit before you hit the cashiers), The Bun starts talking about how it's like being in a deep dark cave and that we're explorers on an adventure.
Bao [grabbing her brother's hand]: Don't worry Korkor, Meimei's here.
6. After I tell Bao that we have to get ready to go out to run an errand.
Bao [again, very dramatically]: Oh, bother!
7. Today, we walked by a cafe which had put its outdoor seating on the pavement.
Bao [stopping and rubbing circles over her belly]: So... hungry!
For the record, she had a big lunch just one hour earlier so this was a purely Pavlovian response.
It's great to now be able to have simple conversations with her, and her strong opinions are rapidly becoming more comprehensible and therefore harder to ignore. She has a dramatic flair (not surprising, considering her parentage) to match her dramatic tantrums but at least she makes up for it by being quite cute (to us, at least). Young children learning how to talk will always be one of my favourite things - the way their language unfolds, and with it, an insight into their minds and their personality.