One of the most enjoyable traits of a toddler is their way of speaking, or in some cases, lack of speaking. My girls all had a fairly extensive vocabulary by the time they were two. My son, Walker, at ages one and two, developed his own language known only to him and partially to his older sister, Whitney. Many times he would jabber and gesture and I didn't have a clue what he was saying until three-year-old Whitney would translate. Occasionally I would hear her use a "Walker word" herself, after which I would remind her that she was not to speak his language, but was to teach him the English equivalent of whatever it was he had just said.
After several years with a speech pathologist, he became fluent and clear in English and his own invented language became forgotten and buried in some deep portion of the brain, too deep for him to remember. It makes me wish I had written it down because it was so cute to listen to, but at the time caused such concern.
I love words of any kind, especially big words, which caused me to get teased a great deal by my older brothers. At times I was called 'Ms. Dictionary,' or worse, 'Janasaurus.' When I complained to Mom, she would just laugh and tell me I should be pleased that my brothers even knew what a thesaurus was.
Reading is probably the best way to build a good vocabulary, but my children are also learning new and bigger words through a vocabulary program at school. We did not have a program like this when I was in school, and I love that they have this opportunity. They learn to understand words that may be on a much higher level than their reading level, and that helps them recognize these words when they see them, even if they can't spell them.
Toddlers sometimes hear a word, but can't quite get their tongues to shape the right sound to repeat it. What they end up with is their very own version of the word. Walker had trouble with the letter "L" for a long time. When he was three, he had a toy yellow bulldozer and it was always a fun sport to ask him to tell us what he was playing with. "It's my yeyow buuzbozer," he would say very proudly. Delaney spoke very clearly right from her first words but had a select few that she renamed. She loved to chew gum but mixed up the pronunciation of bubble gum into something resembling "boyabum." This tickled me because she could clearly say spaghetti and magazine, two words that are notorious for tripping up little tongues. And sometimes they would replace a well-known word with an old English word straight out of nursery rhymes. I remember one Sunday morning when we were all eating Malt-O-Meal, and two-year-old Kinzey pointed her finger at Delaney and said, "Dewaney, you hush and eat your porridge!"
Children usually understand more than what adults give them credit for and sometimes that can get us into trouble. They also seem to unfailingly repeat what you don't want repeated and usually to the very person you don't want them telling.
I remember when Delaney said her first "bad" word. She was only two and a half, but already knew what the words "stupid" and "dummy" meant. Her older siblings had brought these words home from school or the bus and even though they were reprimanded when they used them, they still shouted them at each other occasionally when fighting or arguing.
Shortly after these words had been introduced into our household, I had a doctor's appointment and left Delaney with my mother to be babysat so I could also get some grocery shopping done. When we arrived at my mom's house, I carried Delaney in and took her jacket and shoes off. Mom showed me a cute little pair of yellow rain boots and asked if I thought they would fit Delaney. They were just a half size too small and so regretfully I had to tell her no.
I gave Delaney a hug and promised I would look for a pair of rain boots for her while shopping, and left for my appointment. But poor little Delaney had fallen in love with those cute yellow boots and wanted to put them on in the worst way. Mom told her again that the boots would not fit her and that she would not be able to get her feet all the way in them.
She pleaded until her grandma relented, and said, "Ok, we'll try one boot and just see if it will fit." She seated Delaney on the table and as gently as possible tried to work her little foot into the too-small boot.
After several minutes of struggling, Delaney crossed her arms and said to her grandma, "They don't fit, you dum-dum." Mom swallowed her laughter and quietly explained to Delaney that "dum-dum" was an unkind word and why we shouldn't use it. When mom told me about the incident later, out of Delaney's hearing, we laughed and laughed.
"That's just great," I complained. "We want our parent's to think we're raising our kids perfectly, and then they use the first bad word they learn on their grandparents."