I need a translator for Benglish. What is "Benglish" you may ask? Benglish is the term we use at our house for toddler speak. It's that awkward time when your toddler is jsut starting to put words into sentences and major frustration follows when you can't understand what they are saying ... although they repeat the same unitelligible phrase about 14 times. Caden is a Benglish expert, and you would think with him being my third, I also would have mastered Benglish ... to no avail. My eldest two would attempt Benglish, and finally give up on me after about three repeats of the sentence KNOWING I had no clue and would get not clue in the near future so they just walked away. Caden ... oh no. Caden is obstinate and determined. His Benglish is perfect, in his world, and my interpretation skills flawed, again, in his world. Caden will say a sentence ... calmly the first two times. The third time his tone will be come one of "you're an idiot if you can't understand what I'm telling you." By about the tenth attempt of saying the EXACT same unintelligble sentence to me he is screaming, saying it slowly (like a bad American tourist in a foreign nation that assumes speaking slow, LOUD, english will somehow start to make sense to the poor natives of the country) and his little face is red and his fists clenched. Sometimes, when he is very determined, he will drop to the ground, crawl in circles, and have to regroup, then speak to me a little slower, and with complete intensity, staring me in the eyes, speaking his best Benglish, and both of us hoping we understand. To this day I have mastered the following, "Peds" means "I want to watch/play with my Wonder Pets", "fini, tubb" means, "I'm done with dinner, let's have my tub now, "Wubz" means he watch to watch "Wow, Wow, Wubzzy", brudder is "brother" and "daddy wok" means Dad's at work. I think I should write a Benglish dicitionary for other nom Benglish speakers?
5 comments:
Oh Courtney, I SO feel your pain!! Jackson does the same thing and it's so frustrating!!
The upside, being this is your third and the age gap with the oldest, Benglish might be short-lived. That's what happened with Eddie. It was short-lived, much shorter time period than with the other two. I was told it's common when the child is surrounded by much older and articulate siblings. I'm not sure when it happened, but it was pretty fast, like overnight. He gets communicates with everyone now. :) (almost 3, he better) Enjoy it, cause it really does end super fast and then you understand his words, no going back after that. :)
Oh, and you need to read The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand. Wow. A different way of viewing life than I was raised, but sure makes you think. I couldn't read too fast, cause there was too much to think about and process along the way. That's a good sign. I know you are the same way with books, tear through them and love it. But this one was different for me. Anyway, let me know what you think WHEN you read it. :)
hahaha! I know, it will end to soon. As far as older siblings ... uh, yeah, they are certainly articulate, but I don't want Caden picking up some of their particular articulations! LOL! I am getting the book tomorrow!
the twin thing means you have a benglish translator at the ready at all times. You get "jabber jabber jibberish" then you can look at the other one and say "what the hell did she just say?" And usually it's a selection of words that they can pronounce better than their sister. Problem solved.
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