I thought that the whole phase of finding it funny to say things like "stinky poo poo" and "Pee-yew, stinky winky" and so on, came later. Like, at three or four or later. When the sense of taboo around these kinds of things was a little more developed. But apparently, two-and-a-half is not too young for kids to have a sense of the silly stinkies.
As usual, of course, we are partly to blame, for asking such stupid things as "who made a stinky poo poo?" And their regualr babysitter is apparently a big "Pee-yew"er, because sometimes when I change the girls' diapers or take their socks off they'll say "Pee-yew!" followed by a giggly "Adriana say that!" I suspect she is the one who put "stinky winky" into their vocabularies as well, because I don't recall either Alastair or I ever saying it. But this morning, the girls were drawing all manner of stinky-winky animals: a stinky winky penguin, a stinky winky whale, a stinky winky sheep. Our friend the stinky stinky bat was back, too.
But really, the stinky winky poo poo stuff is only one part of a recent language explosion that seems to have taken place. In the last week or two the girls' verbal skills have taken another quantum leap, and all of a sudden -- wow. They're yakking up a storm. Talking in full sentences and conjugating verbs like little madwomen. Starting to really get the concepts of past and future tense, even if they don't quite yet have a solid concept of time. Building their vocabularies daily. The things that come out of their mouths are constantly surprising me. (A recent favorite: after the girls got up from a nap, I was commenting on the girls' hair being a mess. Elsa held her hair out to the sides and said "My hair is WILD!!")
I'm feeling quite jealous right now of parents I know who are bringing their kids up bi- or tri-lingually, because it's so clear that this is the optimal time for kids to soak up a foreign language. We obviously can't do the full language immersion thing with our girls -- well, I suppose I could start speaking only my intermediate-level Spanish or French to them, but it would severely limit what I could actually say. I have no idea, for example, how to say "stinky stinky bat" in Spanish. In French, I think I could manage "Chauve-souris tres, tres malodorant," but it just doesn't have the same, peurile ring to it, now does it?
But I'm thinking of getting some Spanish language music CDs and maybe some DVDs. (Any good recommendations? Besides the Muzzy program, which is, like, a million dollars?) And when they girls are a little older, there are some Spanish language playgroups and music classes around here that they could do. I'm also going to keep on encouraging their sitter to do some Spanish with them -- giving her some Spanish books and games to work with would probably be helpful. And yes, yes, French would be nice too, of course, as would countless other languages, but I'm sticking with what's most practical for now. So, pipe down, all you Francophiles out there. (That includes you, Grandma, rolling in your grave because you think French is the "international language," and because, let's face it, you were kind of a bigot.)
In the meantime, we will continue to work on expanding our lexicon of English words for bodily functions, odors and excretions. Poop-o-rific!
The stinky winky sisters! (featuring my recent hatchet job of Clio's bangs and Elsa's WILD hair)
