Hannah-isms

Hannah's vocabulary is expanding at a great rate these days. She seems to be picking up new words almost daily, and loves trying out almost anything she hears. She receives lots of encouragement from Rebekah and Daniel who are forever telling her, "Hannah, say....!"

Like any new speaker, Hannah has her own amusing way of communicating. Here are some of our favorite "Hannah-isms":

Hannah is learning to be polite when asking for things. If we tell her to say please, she'll say, "pea." Then after we give her what she's asked for, she says, "come."  For her that suffices for both "thank you" and "you're welcome!"

"Come" used to be her way of asking us to go with her somewhere. More recently though she says, "fa-owe," meaning "follow me!"(And she is very persistent! She won't leave you alone until you follow her!)

Some of our friends from church live just across the street from us. They have two daughters, the older of which loves to play with Hannah and carry her around. The younger daughter almost always calls her big sister "chechi," which is the word for "older sister" in their language (Malayalam). Not long ago Hannah also started calling her "chechi" too!

Hannah is a kid who knows what she wants and works hard to get it. She loves to sit on the kitchen counter with me while I am preparing a meal, so she will run into the kitchen frantically asking, "uh-pee!" (Up please!) Or if she wants us to come read to her or do something else with her, she will pat the desired chair saying, "See down! See down!" (Sit down!).

Most Sunday mornings we have muffins and smoothies for breakfast. Hannah calls muffins "cake," and smoothies "ice cream" (well, "ah-weam"). So to her, we have cake and ice cream for breakfast every Sunday!

Summer has arrived in Bangalore, and with it hundreds of mosquitoes! Sometimes we end up with dozens of them in the house by the end of the day. Hannah has very often seen us slap our hands together in an attempt to catch and kill a mosquito. Now, she will clap her hands, then open them and look inside at her "catch," saying "key-oh!" (mosquito).

Life is never dull with a 19-month-old in the house! (Especially one as busy, adventurous, and mischievous as Miss Hannah Supriyah!)