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Sunday, May 07, 2017

Le-le, La-la, La-lo

Zoë's vocabulary is surprisingly large and diverse. She is always breaking out words we had no idea she knew and her vocabulary covers an astounding number of topics. However, she also doesn't talk much. She's kind of a screamer by nature, so she's perfectly content communicating solely with grunts, squawks and screeches as well.

She doesn't use any words to communicate about her potty needs yet. I mean, she has words, but she doesn't necessarily use them. Mostly she'll say, "Uh-oh!" or "Yucky!" but for the life of me I can't get her to agree to say, "Potty!" or even just "Pee-pee!"

Today before church I took her potty and then asked her what she was going to say if she needed to go potty.

"La-lo!" she said.


If you remember, "la-lo" means yellow. It also mans water, for whatever reason. And since her little potty is yellow, apparently that's the word she'd like to use for potty—which I would totally go for except that it already means "yellow" and "water," two words she uses all day long anyway, so it doesn't really help her to communicate her needs.

There are other, less verbal, ways of communicating such needs, however. A good ol' fashioned grunt combined with age-old body language has been working well for her thus far.

Today I was so excited about having an accident-free day. We'd made it through the entire morning at home (including #2 on the potty!) and the entire four hours at church (the three-hour block plus choir) and the entire afternoon at home (including dinnertime) without a single accident. I had her go potty after dinner and then sent her outside with her siblings while Andrew and I got ready for our family walk (because apparently we are the only two people who know how to turn off lights and other things like that).

"I think this is our first accident-free day!" I declared triumphantly and then I peeked out the front door...and saw Zoë squatting—pooping—on the driveway. "Ugh. Never mind!" I sighed.

Still, all things considered, she's doing fairly well.

As I mentioned, we had a special musical fireside on Friday and a string quartet played (the bishop on the viola, his wife and the Relief Society president on violins, and a pupil on the cello (because the bishop's son is on a mission now—he used to fill that role)), which is always a treat. Zoë was quite excited to see the fancy instruments. She pointed at them and said, "Le-le! Le-le!" because, to her, every stringed instrument is, naturally, a ukulele (the most noble of instruments).

"That's not a ukulele," I said. And then I told her what each instrument is as I pointed to them: viola, violin, cello, violin. She took a turn pointing to them as I said their names, "Viola, violin, cello, violin. Viola, violin, cello, violin."

Then I pointed at one. "What's that?" I asked.

"Vio-le-le!" she answered happily.

I lack a cute story for the "La-la" part of this post. That's her word for umbrella (which she also uses to request the song/rhyme "Here's a Ball for Baby"). It's also her word for "generic princess." I think it is short for Cinderella, maybe. Wherever it comes from we certainly hear a lot of la-la, le-le, la-lo in this house. It's a wonder we're ever able to sort out what this little miss is saying. 

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