Tuesday, July 29, 2008

mystery solved

For a while, Lucy has been saying an indecipherable word.
"Awefahn," she says, pointing towards a street she wants to walk down.
"Awefahn," she says, pointing at the toilet, rather than her little potty, indicating she wants to sit on it.
"Awefahn," she says, pointing at her Raggedy Ann.

Awefahn? Translation, please? We tried phonetic parsing and got nowhere. Off-on? Close in sound, but no sense in context. More fun? Kind of makes sense, but when has she ever heard either of us saying "more fun?"

Today, Dyami broke the code. "This one," he said, triumphantly.
"Excuse me?" I said.
"Awefahn means "This one"", he said. He'd asked Lucy if she wanted one thing or the other, and she pointed to the other, and said "Awefahn."
Clear as crystal.
We just wonder how we were supposed to get "This one" out of "Awefahn".
Of course, this may be setting expectations too high. She says "ABC" for "Oopsie" and "Baby soup" for "Bathing suit," so Awefahn is pretty close, all things considered.
And hey, I mispronounce every 25 cent word I pick up reading, so I guess she takes after me.
I'm so proud.

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