But, my favorite part of language acquisition is the words she does not quite process correctly. There are a few that are sweeter or more humorous than others, but by far my favorite came out of a conversation The Baby had with Princess Commando last week. The Baby was looking over Princess Commando's shoulder while she was reading her National Geographic magazine. "What's that?" The Baby asked, pointing to the canine creature on the page. "That's a coyote," Princess Commando answered. "Oh, yeah, COYDOODIE! Yay!" The Baby repeated, dancing in victory at the acquisition of a new word. My immature inclination to giggle at bathroom humor, a gene I inherited from my father and have now passed down to my own children, keeps me from trying too hard to correct her now.
In the back of my mind- I do harbor a little concern as reversing or swapping out one sound for another is an early sign of Central Auditory Processing Disorder. We did not know this when First Born Son consistently mispronounced words- swapping them for a similarly sounding word or phrase. Prior to his diagnosis in 6th grade, it caused undue difficulty in school. But, it also left us with some memorable lines. In 1st grade he announced that he wanted to marry a lovely little girl in his class. When we asked him why, he answered with dreamy eyes, "Because she is a hot stick." He meant, of course, hot chick. It probably should have been more concerning that at 6 years old he knew the term hot chick and that he was already objectifying the female sex- rather than worrying over his swapping sounds to create a new phrase.
We have a few more years before we can know for certain if all of her ear infections and chronic fluid has caused damage to The Baby's auditory nerves. Until then, coyotes will be coydoodies. And we'll still immaturely laugh about it.
