Things Misheard

Emelie is learning things so quickly these days that I'm constantly surprised by words she knows.

For example, the other day I said "sleeve" (just in passing; I don't even remember what I was talking about) and she pointed to her sleeve. When did she learn sleeve?

Or how about "bean"? My mom calls one of her cats Bean, and we spent some time at her house calling for the cat. Later, someone mentioned beans (the kind you eat) and Eme called "beeeeeen! beeeeeeen!" just like when we'd called for the cat.

The number and variety of words she understands (and repeats) amazes me, but even more amazing are the connections I can see forming when she shares her understanding. We've had a lot of laughs out of things that Eme mishears or misunderstands as her brains makes these kinds of connections.

For example, we have a groundhog living out in the back of our yard. One day we were pointing out the window and telling her it was a groundhog. The next time it appeared and we said "groundhog" she said "hu" and hugged herself. She thinks we're saying "ground-hug."

Another good one was when Andreas was talking about planting bamboo in the yard. Eme practiced saying "baboo," "beboo," "babo," and multiple other forms of the word right in a row. Finally, she ended the performance by wanting me to kiss her on her knee. The knee that she'd scraped a few days earlier. Her "boo boo."

My favorite by far, though, is a new book we've been reading with her. She likes to act out the book (ask her what Findus looks like when he gets scared of the badger; the face she makes is hilarious!), plus it's in Swedish so I don't read the words so much as reading the pictures. Once as we were "reading" it I pointed out that the man is making coffee.

Eme made a noise in her throat that I didn't really think about. The next time we read the book, Eme got very excited when we reached that page, pointing to the coffee pot and making the noise in her throat again. She was coughing. She made the connection to a word she knew -- she understood that he was making cough-ee.

Amazing.

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