Phoebe's speech

Phoebe's vocabulary has been exploding recently, though she's rather big on metathesis and assimilation so can be difficult to understand at times. 

Boots was once "boops" and then became "doots" (two examples of assimilation there—first she turned the final /t/ to a /p/, matching the initial /b/ and then she over corrected and turned the /b/ to a /d/ to match the final /t/). 

Ironically, when she tried to say "book," she would front her /k/ so it actually came out sounding as "boot."

"Read boot!" 

"Put on boops!"

More recently boots are boots, but book is still boot. We kind of have to go off context sometimes.

Today Phoebe wanted to shower with me, but metathesizes the word so it comes out "yeah, sure."

Shower = yeah-sure (ya-shur)

Zoë = O-zee

Alex = Aksay

*****

We've been trying to convince Phoebe to take a turn saying prayers for months now, and although she volunteered to say the prayer plenty of times, she only recently followed through with actually saying it. 

The issue is that she doesn't like to be prompted on what to say (but she also can't form enough coherent sentences to offer a prayer anyone else could understand). But finally she's willing to repeat after us. 

The other night at dinner, Andrew asked someone to pray and Phoebe yelled, "No! Phoebe! Pray! Phoebe!!"

"Do you want to say the prayer?" he asked her.

"Yeah," said Phoebe.

"Okay," Andrew said.

"Nu-nuh pray," Phoebe agreed.

"No," Andrew said. "It's time for prayer. We're going to pray."

Phoebe looked at him in confusion while the rest of us explained that "nu-nuh" was clearly "dinner."

"Oh," he said. "I thought she said 'no-no pray.' Did you say dinner prayer?"

"Yeah. Nu-nuh pray."

"Okay. You can say the prayer. Say, 'Dear...'"

"Dear..."

"Heavenly Father..."

"MOM!"

"You want Mom to help you?"

"She's not saying 'mom,'" I whispered. "She's saying amen."

"Oh. It's a little early for amen. Say: Dear Heavenly Father..."

"Henny Fa-uh..."

"We're thankful..."

"Taynt-tyoo..."

"...for the food..."

"MEM!"

"Not amen. We're thankful for the food."

"Food."

"Please bless it."

"MEM!"

"Not amen. Please bless it."

"Bess."

"In the name..."

"MEM!"

"Of Jesus Christ..."

"MEM!"

"Amen."

"MEM! MEM! MEM! EAT!"

*****

I would attempt to make a list of words like I've done in the past for some of my kids, but I fear I've put it off so long that Phoebe knows a ridiculous number of words. 

Water
Ice
Cup
Spoon
Fork
Knife (most recently said while poking me in the bum with a knife I'd forgotten to take out of the dishwasher; she's not supposed to have those knives so was "giving" it to me)
Chair
Bed
Read
Book
Scriptures
Walk
Run
Jump
Fall
Hurting
Potty
Pee
Poop
Watch
Open
Muffin
Nothing (these last three are pronounced "ope-mmm, muff-mmmm, and nuth-mmm" respectively)
Snake
Dog
Cat
Gorilla
Giraffe
Rhino
Hippo
Horse
Monkey
Bear
Up (often "uppy" if she wants to be held)
Down (pronounced "noun," and then we tease her by saying, "verb! adjective!")
In 
Out
Outside
Sun
Moon
Star
Heart
Red
Blue
Green
Yellow
Orange
Pink
Black
Purple
Boots
Shoe
Sock
Sweater
Pants
Underwear
Helping
Wash
Off
Bath
Messy
Clean
Dark
Light
Stairs
Swim
Diaper
Duck
Rainbow
Writing
Colour
Draw
Paper
Glue
Scissors
Chalk
Erase
Music
Dance
Play
Kitchen
LEGO
Train
Car
Bus
Truck
Van
Buckle
Helmet
Scooter
Bike
Sky
Flower 
Bug
Wipe
Napkin
Towel
Dry
Spill
Please
Thank you
Bye
Hi
Mail
Nurse
Banana
Apple
Pear
Peach
Grape
Naan
Bread
Potato
Tomato
Spider
Tiger
Baby
Swing
Step
Ball
Throw
Hit
Kick
Mean
Spit
Bite
Eye
Ear
Hair
Hand
Foot
Knee
Back
Mouth
Brush
Teeth
Nose
Want
Pillow
Cake
Cookie
Candy
Nail
Dinosaur
Away
Sing
Choose
Go
Two
Three
Many (she literally counts "two...tee...many!")
See
Smell
Lid
Push
Marble
Pumpkin
Ghost
Witch
Skeleton
Scary
Bat
Phone
Grandpa
Letter
Math
Milk
Juice
Moose
Owl
Mask
Kids
Stuck
Bubbles
Cut
Tail
Big
Piano
Poke
Hot
Do
Key
Remote
Food
Eat
Bless
Prayer
Arms
Egg
Meat
Cheese
Fish
Butter
Honey
Kiss
Hug
House
"Trick or Treat"
Halloween
Happy
Balloon
Leaf
Hat

And that's over 200 words, so I'm just going to stop there. She probably has more words than that, but it's probably not necessary to list all the words she says (or to update this list again). She is learning words left and right, putting sentences together, and is overall a very effective communicator.