1. Just to record how he says his ABCs.

Everytime we start saying the alphabets, he would say the letter after it. For example, we say, A, he would say, B, then we would pronounce B again for him and he would say C.

What I’m recording however is his own version of the ABC chant that only his Papa and Mama knows. Others who heard him say the alphabets doesn’t even know he’s reciting them.

Why so?

Because it’s a mixture of mis-pronounciation, phonetic sounds coupled with names of the alphabets. He says more phonetic sound, learnt from the LeapFrog than the real names and not many people around us knows phonics.In fact, both of us wasn’t schooled in phonics too til we watched this programme.

So he has taken a more advanced step than other kids. While people are just learning to say the names, he skipped that and went to the sounds. Just like he skipped crawling and went to walking. Learning phonics is not too bad but he doesn’t always get them correct and I would have preferred him just learning to say the name properly first, doing things step by step because that’s what other people, such as teachers, are teaching and that’s what they’ll assess him on. If he pronounced them the phonetic way, they might not get it that he knew because it’s all a rojak mix.

Also, I do not wish to correct him and say it’s wrong when he says it wrongly. It would kill his confidence in pronouncing. What I did was to sound it out for him after he said it so he would be able to hear and get it eventually by himself.

This is how it goes with Darius @ 19mths. We’ll see how he says it again in the future.

A – AAAAA!!! (high-pitched Ah) , B- Ah Bub, C- Seh or say, D - Tt Tt, E- Yi… Er (after the first few perfect pronounciations, when we taught him the chinese numbers, he started adding in “Er” for no apparent reason, like he can’t stop himself), F – F or ffff (perfect! both name and phonetic sound), G- Tt Tt, H -hah hah, I- “eye” (perfect!), J - Tt Tt, K -Tt Tt (Have you noticed he says “Tt Tt” for all the silent sounds?), L – ooo (was “all” but became “ooo”), M – “Am” or mmmm (perfect!), N – “Annn” (perfect!), O – o (perfect!), P - ppp (correct phonetic sound), Q – qua (correct phonetic sound), R - “Ar” (perfect!), S – ssss (lost the ability to pronounce “As”, dunno why), T – Tt Tt (correct phonetic sound), U – wu-you (his own version), V – ……….(dunno), W-wa! wa! (correct phonetic sound), X – ssss (somewhat correct phonetic sound, like ‘fox’), Y- yi-yer! ya! , Z – zeee (sometimes…)

2. Dah – Dah

His new word. Is it his name? He started saying this recently,when he listened to songs from his own Name Christian Song CD which kept belting out “Darius…Darius”. He would say, “Dah…dah in response”.

BUT It also meant something else.

A little story first –Nowadays, he likes to poo in the early morning before I get up or even shortly after I get up. If he had not and I tried with him on the bowl, he would not do it and would be whiny, so I gave up. When moments later he pooped, I’ll be frustrated and show him, “see? what’s this? (hold it right to his face so he can see it in his pants) Why never tell Mama you hmmm hmmm? “Hmmm hmmm” is my word for him to signify “poo” but he has never once said it to me.

After a few days of this ‘showing’ before I dumped it into the bowl, he started saying, “Dah…dah” while looking at his poo. I was surprised but he kept saying this everytime I showed him despite me still continuing saying ,” hmmm hmmm”.

Then, he started not doing his business on certain mornings and would just choose to do it as and when in his pants.

One early morning, he said, “Dar…dar” to me while I was still in bed. I chose to ignore and moments later, he pooped in his diaper. That’s when I started to think that maybe “Dar…dar” is his word, his signal.

Just a few days ago, in the afternoon, he squatted on the floor while I was preparing something in the kitchen and said, “Dah…dah”. He has not done his morning poo. I looked at him intently and he stared at me and said, “Dah….dah” again. I quickly took him to the toilet this time and plopped him on the toilet bowl. He did his poop successfully without much fuss.

So from then on, I decided to use his invented word, “Dar…Dar” for poop. I asked hubby if he ever used the word, ‘大便’(chinese for doing ‘big business’). He said he used it on some occasions when Darius pooped in the morning and he brought him to wash and change. So maybe he caught the “da” from Hubby and used that instead. I don’t use that word because it sounds coarse to me..hee *shrug. I just don’t get why he refused to use “hmmm hmmm” for it though he could pronounce.

After that one time, he never used “dah…dah…” again however. So it’s still unclear whether his signal really meant pooping.

3. Ya!

While reading a story, out of inspiration, I asked him, “What is this?” by pointing to the picture of a duck. Before continuing, I have to explain that he could never pronounce Duck nor Dog even though we kept coming across them in many stories. They seemed to be the most common words and the first few words a child pronounces. But he just couldn’t pronounce the Dd sound no matter how many times I sound out for him, even though he could say, “Dah Dah”…strange right? He pronounces Dd as “Tt Tt”.

So I asked him what the picture is, and he said, “鸭!” It shocked me totally. I kept telling this to him so many times， “Duck，鸭子(ya zi)” and not once could he tell me what it was but that day, he exclaimed this answer out of nowhere. “Ya!!” So does he really know what it is?

4. Yi Ya Yi Ya!

Finally, he is able to say the “Eee i eee i…o” but he said it as “Yi Ya Yi Ya….” when the song is playing. Same tone. He started saying this after he mastered saying, “Ya..or yer” for Y.

5. His new favourite alphabet is W

He is very fond of it and kept shouting out, “Wa! WA!” whenever he sees it. His all-time favourite is still H though. Letter H would get him saying, “Hah hah” to us for a long time and he would hold onto the alphabet for a long time.

6. Pigs

His favourite book is The Three Little Pigs and yesterday til today, he kept saying, “Peass…..peassss” when he held the book to bring to us to read. I’m guessing he’s trying to say “Pigs”.

7. Fish

He says, “Fffu…” when we visited the Fish Farm that day. Then, this few days, he said, “Fff..is” sometimes, very low and soft. But now mostly, he’s just saying, “Ffff…fui“, low and soft too because he’s not confident.

8. Numbers

He’s finally saying it more proper. Today, when I showed him Number 6, he kept sounding it out, saying, “Seh..xx or Sss..seh…x“, clearly hearing the seh instead of just the “Sssss” he always do for Number 6.

But 9 has now falter and became a “Na”. >.< 4 is still accurate four. 5 is fffff..r sounding almost the same as what he’s pronouncing for fish. 7 is still “seh”. 8 is silence. He just could not pronounce it. 10 is “ter…ter”.

The strange things is, 1 and 2. He says them as, “Uh er…” Show him 1, he says, “Uh..er”, show him 2, he says, “Uh..er” again. Do not understand why. 3 has a sound but I can’t spell it out.

9. When reading books

Lately, he would attempt to say the words along with us while we read-aloud familiar storybooks. He would also be able to turn to the correct pages while we were saying the story.

Mr Brown Can Moo! – This book has been read to him countless times since he was only 3.5 months old and it is still his favourite and a Must-Read daily. We got bored with sitting with him reading aloud because he always comes after us all the time. So we started saying the story out for him while we are doing our stuff, because we already memorised it very well. We also do it for other Dr Seuss Books and tried to occasionally for the Three Little Pigs (but that is a little harder to remember)And he would then stand beside us (while we are on the comp, or walking about in the kitchen) and turn the pages while we read, showing that he knew exactly where we were reading! *grin.

We also started letting him say the word for us when we got to it. And we discovered he attempted to say some of them! (which was the purpose of the book) Not exactly but quite close.

Example:  Moo- He says, “oooo!”. Bees buzz – “sss…sss” . Horse Klop klop – “cloc…cloc”. Owl hoo – “hoo hoo” . Boom Boom – “bmmm bmmm”

For The Shape of Me and Other Stuff – He says , “A..buh” for Bug. And for things ending with s, like beans, flowers, mice, and big machines, he just “ssssss” all the way. He would also take our fingers to point to the different shaped objects in that book and we would tell him what they are. He would smack his lips like me when I say, “The shape of lips”. He would put his hands on his hair and comb his fingers down from his head to shoulder, when I say “The shape of water when it drips” because I would be doing the trickling down action with my fingers.

He likes to do that nowadays, Take our fingers and point to the pictures in the books. Especially for the Brown Bear, Brown Bear book, he would not let me turn the page when we reach the Purple Cat and would take my finger to poke the Cat’s head so I have to say, “Meow!” before he’s satisfied and let me turn the page to continue.

For Sandra Boynton’s book, “Moo, Baaa, Lalala” – He says, “aaaa” for the sheep’s baa and “ya ya ya” for the pig’s lalala. He says, “arrrffff arrrrfff” for ruff ruff ruff.

For Peter and Jane books, he just keeps saying, “a ball”, “a ball” and “Tt Tt” when he ‘reads’ by himself and turns the pages. Some of the pages are getting very crumpled. *sad…

10. Others

He can pronounce Apple very well now and says it very cutely when he sees a picture of an Apple. “Aaa..ple” (like with a British accent).

He lost the ability to say “Or” for orange though. I think because we used it too often during camera times. He is getting confused…=.=” .Today, when I showed him an orange. He tried to pronounce it as “ow..wie“. Wow! that’s a New Sound from him.Not bad!

He says, “nana” for Banana.

Dunno why he started saying a week ago, “Ai Ni” when he appeared out of the bedroom after a nap. He started taking one long afternoon nap of 2-3hours after I changed his routine to 1 nap a day after lunch for a few weeks already. I guess it’s his way of saying he missed me since he hasn’t seen me for a few hours. He would also say it if I hadn’t talked to him for sometime and he entered the study room after self-playing in the living room. And he would often follow up with “Mama”. I confirmed that it’s really for me because he ONLY says ‘Ai Ni’ sometimes to other people, like his Daddy but never follow up with Mama. My reply would be “Ai Wo Ah?! Ai Ma Ma ah?”

So This few days, he started saying, “Ai Ma Ma”! right after saying, “Ai Ni…MaMa”. (He likes to chant a few times) I’m really touched hearing him say this to me everytime. I can’t help put down my stuff and hug him and he knows it. His secret weapon.

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