Speak aloud

Dear son will be 18-months old tomorrow. He's becoming bigger and bigger by the day. So active, yes. He runs around so fast that one would think somebody's trying to get to him, maybe kidnap him. And he climbs chairs, windows, chests (human and furniture alike!), and more.

Picky eater, no, not in the very least. He eats almost anything you hand to him: bread, pasta (like his Papa, spaghetti is his fave), fruits like mango, banana, papaya and watermelon, vegetables like carrots, squash, mango squash, cabbages and even bitter gourd!

Talkative, even noisy at times. Uhm, baby-talk. Some gibberish, some comprehensible. And because I'm a geeky mama, I have listed some words that he uses when speaking aloud and which I'm lucky to have figured out. Like this morning while I was about to change his diaper, he said something which I couldn't quite understand -and he must have seen the confusion in my blank , almost dumb look that he repeated it again, more loudly and clearly this time and I was surprised because what he really said was "wet." And when I instinctively echoed the word back to him, he smiled at me and the look in his eyes was one of agreement.

So here goes the list of the very Bisaya terms he knows, the term on the right was his way of enunciating these words:

Baho - abu
Balut - tabu
Katkat - katkat
Isda - da
Sakay - takay
Siga – diga
Run, many - dagan
Paypay - papay
Pan - pan


And some English words:

Ant - an
Baby - baby
Ball - boy
Banana - bana
Battery - tah-wee
Bird - bid
Bike - buy(k)
Butterfly - buy
Cat - cat
Cap - cap
Car - broom2 or ka
Carry - kah-wee
Clean - kin
Cow - cow
Cry - cry
Darling - dah-nee
Dead - ded
Dickory – dikowee
Dirty - di-ti
Dizzy - diddy
Eat - eat
Feet, fish - p/fit
Good boy - go-boy
Guava - vava
Head - ed
Hand - and
Hanger and Honey – honey
Hi - hi
Hot - hot
Hug - at
Hurt - yayay
Jeep - dip
Kid - kid
Lamp - wam
Light - gigi
Lizard - dee-ah
Mama - Mama
Milk - Mimi
Nanay - Nanay
No - na
Papa – Papa
Rabbit - dabbit
Rain - wen
Tatay - Tatay
Teeth - teet
Ten - ten
Three - tee
Tita – dee-dah
TV - TV
Tummy - tummy
Umbrella - a-bi-bah
Wet - wet
Yummy - yummy

A noun:
Ketkai - kikay, referring to a mall in the city


Some phrases:

Get in - getin
Go away - go-wee

And some even more wonderful phrases:

I love you - Bah-bu
Thank you - de-kah


Noticeably, my son has learned a lot of the English language. Must be because we try to communicate with him this way (in our super 'naning' way), and I read him books even before he was born. Also, he watches English shows like Barney, Sesame Street almost everyday. As Papa put it, better to learn English early on so he'll only have to worry about the Math later. Funny, but I think it makes sense too.