Dur dur etre bebe

My junior year of high school we had to translate a song from French to English. The song the teacher chose was Dur Dur Etre Bebe, which translated, means It's so tough to be a baby. Uh... OK. It was like, this 4-year old singing sensation or something. Probably people in France had never heard of the song, but it was some sort of novelty in America. Whatever.

Anyway, it's so fun to watch Matthew as his language skills develop, in addition to his comprehension of the world around him. For some reason, he's become significantly more independent in the past couple of weeks (GREAT for me). He used to cling to me constantly when out in public, but at church yesterday, he was wandering around, letting all kinds of people hold him (especially people with food). What's particularly hilarious is when he tries to talk to these random people. Matthew is ALWAYS talking. About 75% is still incoherent babbling, but he has a pretty extensive vocabulary. For example:

People he knows by name: Mommy, Daddy, Ellie (ah-yee), Grandma (ma-maw), Grandpa (ma-baw), 3 different girls named Abby, Audrey (ahjee), Lauren (rahree), Jojo, Joe, Uncle Paul (uh-paw), Uncle (uh-coe)

Characters he recognizes: Elmo (ahmo), Dora (rora), Blue (boo), Max (mass), Ruby (ooby), Pablo from Backyardigans (pahbo), most elephants (he makes elephant sounds)

Food: Bap, cheese (jee), apple (ah-puh also includes pears, peaches, mangoes, and raspberries), banana (nana), melon (also nana), juice (joo), water (wawa), food (mama), apple juice (ah-puh joo)

Communicative words: up, down (dow), out (ow), ow (ow), open (uppy), please (me or sometimes beese), no no, night night (nie nie), bye, hi, uh oh, all gone (agaw)

Items: shoe (joo), fork (boh), spoon (boo), sticker (teecaw), tattoo (ddaddoo), backpack (bapa), phone (hi), toothbrush (ee), vacuum (also ee), car (caw), baby, camera (jee, aka cheese), train (joo joo), book (beu), ball (baw)

I'm sure there are others I can't think of right now. Anyway, the point is that some are clearly understood. When he points to a ball and says "baw," most people will get him the ball. However, if he sees a toothbrush and is yelling, "Ee! Ee! Me!" they are baffled (translated - toothbrush, toothbrush, please).

Sometimes I forget how young he is or how limited his vocabulary is. Especially on mornings he decides to get up at 6:30, when he's walking around our room requesting different things (usually by yelling, me me me!), I find myself often saying to him, "Use your words!" Except... he doesn't have that many.

We've also been trying to get him to switch from pronouncing "please" as "me" to "beese." I taught him please to be polite, but he yells, "ME ME ME!" at the top of his lungs, sort of negating the politeness factor. He was asking me for gum yesterday, and I said no. He goes, "Me!" I said no again. "Me! Me!" Still no. Then he thinks a minute and goes, "Beese!" I said, "I know you're saying please, Matthew, but you still cannot have gum." He answers, "ME!" in this tone of voice that was like, um, hello? But I SAID please! What's the deal here? Obviously some lessons are yet to be learned.

Anyway, if you ever try to communicate with my crazy boy, hopefully this will help. :) He's so cute these days. He just tickles my heart.