Eliana’s speech is slowly transforming from her own brand of diction to standard Midwestern English. As far as I can tell, no came first, then uh-oh, followed by yeah. Beth has also observed from her Julius (the cat) and our long-sought-after Mama and Dada, although it hasn’t been clear that she was using any of those as regular words—until this morning.
Eliana woke up early this morning and shortly thereafter used her newfound signing skills to tell me that she was hungry. I gave her a banana first. When she was about done with that, I got out a loaf of bread and started slicing a piece for her. Eliana pointed to the bread saying, “Daddy! Daddy!” In time it became clear that she wasn’t referring to me, but rather to the bread. I had made the bread the previous Sunday, as I often do when I’m making pizza to bring to church. Ethan has long called it Daddy bread to differentiate it from store-bought bread. And so now with Eliana. Even if she doesn’t have a word yet for the baker, she does for his brand of bread.