It's a thingy, of course!

Conversations in our house, these days, go kind of like this...

"Aaah-ba. Aaaah-ba."

"That's right Dashy, water. The cow, moo moo, on that page is drinking the water."

"Woo-woo! Woo-woo!"

"Yep, that's a train. Woo-woo. It's going past the cow. Moo. Moo. See the boy on the fence waving 'hi'?"

"Hi," Dashy waves, turns the page, and signs for bird. "Vroom. Vroom."

"That's right there's a bird and a car. Vroom. Vroom. Very good."

If anyone was listening outside, they would think that we were complete loons! But lately, Dashy's been getting his ideas across in a mixed language of words, signs and sound effects. (Is it the animators in Dave and me that brought the whole sound effect thing to the table, or is that normal? You tell me. I'd love to know.) And it seems to be working for everyone so far. Dash has been picking up on things quickly, so I've been trying to give him all the options to identify an animal or an object whenever possible.

Like cow, we're working on the sign, but I keep giving him the word and sound effects as backup options. (Who doesn't like options, right?!) But, then there are things like turtles. They don't really make any sound and "turtle" is a pretty hard word, so we've been working a sign for it (since Dash has developed a bit of a facination with turtles.)

Tonight in tub we were working on this sign. I helped him model it a few times and then he pointed to his turtle and tried to model it himself. But I think that he knew he wasn't quite getting right, because he grabbed my hand as if to say, "help me model it mommy." So I helped him again and he tried again and then grabbed my hand again. And we did this a few times until he moved onto his boat. (Turtles can only be interesting for so long!)

So here's the thing...

Dash has this lovely boat that he got for his birthday (thank you Lauren, Rebekah, and Bryan!) He kept pointing to the anchor and saying, "Ooo dat?" So I would say the word. And then he would point to the window and I would say the word.














And for a while we went round and round talking about the window and the anchor.

Then he pointed to this...



















...and I got all flustered and said, "Fan! Oh, no, wait, um... propeller. Yep, propeller! I think." (It looks like a fan, right?!)

And then he was back to the anchor and the window for a while and I started to relax until...

...suddenly, out of the blue,...

...he pointed to this...















"Ooo dat?!" he exclaimed.

"Um... uuuummm..." was all I could come up with.

I mean, what heck is that called??! I don't know.

So I said, "Turn-y thing-y."

And Dash just looked at me like this...



















Sorry kid. I think I just let you down.

What can I say? I was at a loss for words. I totally did not expect to be in this predicament yet. Isn't this supposed to come next year when they start asking, "Why? Why?!" I have been bracing myself for the why's; I just hadn't prepared for the, "Ooo dat?!"

So now, I'm going to have to start spending all my free time going through the house figuring out what everything's proper name is, because the kid obviously seems to know when I'm fakin' it!