Words Nina Knows at 16 Months
“That!” – Always said with the exclamation point. It means “Give me that” or “move me toward there” or “activate that door/lightswitch/food utensil for me”. I think this gets overused since Nina used to say “Gah” and point and we’d say “That’s a tomato/car/cat/nostril/etc.”

“Da da da da da da” - Me, Daddy. Also just said to indicate she’s having fun.

“Nah nah nah nah nah” - Alison, Mommy. Seems to only be used to summon Alison.

“Cat!” – Sometimes it sounds more like Ghat, or is indistinguishable from That. A cat is any animal with fur. Once it was even a fish.

Shaking head – If you ask Nina “Would you like to go upstairs?” she will shake her head that she doesn’t, and then beg to go upstairs. To her, the shaking of one’s head is just the answer to any question. However, if we respected her wishes, she’d never be taken out of her crib and would smell horribly and probably starve. We’re working on the positive head nod. Only Alison has managed to get Nina to nod her head yes, and I think that might have been in Alison’s imagination.

Loud Squeal (negative) – This means “I’m upset and I can’t get no satisfaction so, hey, why not get everyone’s attention”. Now, this is acceptable if she has built up to it. Normally this happens in the car. If she hasn’t done any low level crying about how horrible it is to sit in her seat and have someone sing to her or play High Five or Quack Quack Quack Quack Quack Cock-a-doodle-doo or Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes (Knees and Toes), then I’ll reprimand her by saying “Nina, what’s your deal? No No No. I expect some low level crying to indicate you need assistance before you just launch into some full fledged bat squeal.” And usually Nina obliges with some low level crying, to which I might say “I’d rather you cry than squeal.”

In fact, “I’d rather you cry than (insert bad action)” is a theme that will continue. And since she’ll cry if we say “No” to her, at least at this point in her life, it’s easy to make that trade off.

Loud Squeal (positive) – This means “Whoo! I can’t believe how much fun it is to walk around in Home Depot/the church lobby/Target/the driveway. I’m king of the world!” In fact, the one thing that will usually get Nina back into a good mood, even if she’s bleeding out her eyeballs, is for her to walk around and mess with things. She loves touching clothing at Target or trying to open DVD player boxes, or at least pushing and pulling on them so they might fall over on her.

Random Gibberish with changing tones indication statements and questions – She does this when she plays talking on the phone. However, usually her phone is a calculator, as she is not allowed to play with our cell phones. Though, sometimes we do let her play with them when the keypad is locked. But after she threw my 3390 onto the concrete floor at Home Depot, forget that. She also sometimes talks on her Guess How Much I Love You stuffed Rabbit. Or a stick. Or anything.

“Dah Goo” – She has said this since we got her. I have no idea what it means, but she seems to reserve it for “It’s calm now and pleasant.” It may just be an anomaly that it seems to happen at those times, but it also might be Cantonese.

“Uuuuuhh!” (rising tone) – Means “You are doing something that does not conform to my wishes, or I’m just frustrated in general.” This can be couples with “That!” or Loud Squeal (negative), and often is.

“Hmm Haaaah” – Nina speak for “Boohbah.” Repeat saying this for a minute for most realistic Nina effect.

- posted by Nick Postagulous @ 9:41 AM