Mugwort talks! Seriously. She's a regular conversationalist, with a huge, highly nuanced vocabulary. Okay, the entire vocabulary consists of "eh" but you wouldn't believe how much she can emote in that one little syllable.
Take, for example, the following conversation we had just the other day:
Me: Are you napping?
Mug: Eh.
Me: I didn't think so. You hungry?
Mug: Eh.
Me: So do you think the Gaza disengagement will really lead to peace with the Palestinians?
Mug: Eh.
See what I mean? A regular Daniel Webster, that little orator of mine.
Sometimes her ehs sound like grunts or squeaks or snorts. We began calling her our baby mastodon for her seismic squawking.
And while most babies wait until around 6 weeks to start differentiating their cries, the hubby and I can already distinguish several variations to her mastodon roars.
She talks to my boobs with a pleading eh eh eh as if to say, "How am I gonna fit all THAT in my mouth?"
When her Daddy holds her close, she gazes up into his face, alert and fascinated, emitting a sweet, quiet "eh" that says, "I have gas."
Fail to heed her hungry cries, marked by a more assertive EH, and it becomes an all-out, bawling EH EH EH EH. That one needs no translation, I think.
I have high hopes for my little girl. I'm thinking lawyer? Negotiator? Maybe a politician or speech writer. Maybe an actress. Why, just one "eh" from her ought to win over the Oscar judges big time, maybe for Best Performance by a Really, Really Small Mastodon in a Spitting Up Role ...
I'm thinking president. A one-word vocabulary means Slate can't quote her daily malpropisms. Already I can see the Lael quotable calendar:
January: "Eh."
Februrary: "Eh."
March: "Eh-eh!."
You get the idea.
Posted by: plosh | August 28, 2005 at 02:14 PM
Is the "eh" similar to the Canadian "eh," to the Fonzie "AYYYY!," or something different altogether?
Posted by: Ontario Emperor | August 30, 2005 at 10:46 PM
Welcome back Anne~ Lord I've missed ya!
If you need respite from the world of * Ehs* please feel free to join me and my manic ramblings over at my site~ check url above... :)
Posted by: babac | August 31, 2005 at 01:23 PM
Eh.
Posted by: psychotoddler | September 02, 2005 at 04:39 PM