Beebaw and Akee

I was thinking today that Matthew knew some funny words. They're mostly words with which most 16-month olds are unfamiliar with. Can you figure them out?
beebaw, teekaw, akee, peekah peekaw, ah yoo, tattoo

Obviously, the last one is tattoo. He's quite obsessed with them, after having gotten one from the JCS festival a month ago. One time, Ellie scribbled all over her arms, then all over his. He declared these scribbles to be tattoos, so everytime he sees a pen, he requests tattoos to be drawn on him. Ellie also thinks that if you take stickers and wet them on your arm, they become tattoos. So at least one member of my household gets a "tattoo" on a daily basis.

Beebaw? Any takers? That would be lolipop, a word that is near and dear to my Matty's heart. Whenever we go to Peter's office (which is at least once a week), he IMMEDIATELY is rewarded with a beebaw from Sandy Eemo, aka Meemo. For awhile, as soon as he saw Sandy, Matthew would immediately begin his chant of beebaw, beebaw, beebaw until he got what he wanted. NOW all you have to do is mention Sandy's name for the beebaw mantra to begin.

Teekaw? Sticker. I don't know why in the world we have so many stickers at our house, but they are literally everywhere. Floor, walls, kitchen, bathroom, stairs, carpet, bathtub... I remember I used to save my stickers. Peeling them was a travesty - it RUINED them! I don't know why I collected them since they were never really put to use, but I do remember the sparkly ones, scented ones, fuzzy ones and googly-eyed ones being of particular value. Ellie clearly does not share my sticker philosophy. The girl peels and sticks entire pages of stickers within minutes. Anyway, Matthew loves stickers, even address labels, which he will promptly apply to his entire body and whatever other parts of the house are not yet stickered.

Akee? That would be ice cream. We have these plastic ice cream cones from the 99 cent only store. Just a few days ago, he came to me with the pink one yelling AKEE AKEE! I don't know how he knows that word. I guess Ellie talks about ice cream a lot, but we usually eat it either when he's asleep or when he isn't there. We went to Baskin Robbins last night, though, and he was shouting AKEE AKEE until he got... an empty cone. This he relished with delight.

Peekah peekaw? Those with children may be familiar with Barney's clean-up song - Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere, clean up, clean up, everybody do your share. I use this song to feebly attempt to motivate my messy daughter to clean up her toys. Somehow it's turned into Matthew singing "Peekah peekaw," carrying a large trash can around, putting stuff in it (like his clean clothes, eating utensils, my wallet), them dumping the trash can out in various rooms of our house. I guess technically, he loves to clean up. That'll be a good thing once he figures out how to do it correctly.

Ah yoo? Where are you? This phrase is used to refer to blankets (under which he hides and calls out, "Ah yoo?") or any object large enough to cover his face, and is sometimes used correctly when he's looking for things. Actually, just yesterday he was calling, "Mommy! Ah yoo?" That was cute. Made me melt a little bit.

He's at such a fun age. Seriously, our crazy boy is hilarious. I love seeing him explore the world, figure out his boundaries, copy his big sister, do some baby problem solving... he spent 5 minutes trying to reach a sticker on the bottom of the trash can by leaning over it and futiley wiggling his too-short arm around in the receptacle. So cute!

Um, I just realized that most 16-year olds don't know some of these words because really, 16-month olds should not be familiar with lolipops, ice cream and tattoos. What can you do with a big preschooler sister? My poor third child will be eating those darn sugar-free lolipops before a year, I'm sure. Ah well. Whatever keeps us sane!