From the mouth of babes

Baby B likes peppermint. He rummages through my nightstand regularly, because once I found a decrepit Star Brite Mint in the drawer and gave it to him. One mint, one time. Now he asks "Mommy, have it mint? Baby B eat it mint?" whenever we go into my room. During the holidays he would make a bee line for the Christmas trees in the houses we visited, would ask for a candy cane and crunch it up on the spot. He also likes to get his teeth brushed, d’ja know why? He wants the toothpaste. When it’s tooth-time he will say, “Candy cane mouth!”

They tend to scold the things that cause them injury, like each other, of course, and any furniture they crash into. From Baby B: “No! Bad Baby A! No biting! Naughty!” From Baby A: “Bad chair! No hurt Baby! No chair hurt Baby A!” And once, hilariously, from Baby B, as he was holding the cat’s tail, “No Meow Meow! Let go! Owweee!” The cat wasn’t too fussed, just puzzled. He gave Baby B a look to say, “Shouldn’t I be yelling at you, dude?” Thank goodness he’s so patient and understanding...and lazy. Methinks he just can’t be bothered to get up and run away.

Both babies say “it” a lot. They use it as a conjunction. “Baby B hold it fork,” "Daddy drive it car," “Baby A read it book,” “Mommy take it bath,” and so on. Sometimes, especially when Baby A is releasing on of his bizarre stream of consciousness sentences, “it” sprinkled liberally about gets confusing. Last night he said “Mommy hold it knife cut it Meow Meow outside it cold knife it no hold it Baby A.” I was cooking, didn't want him to touch the chopping knife and earlier I had let out the cat. You got that, right?

I wonder if the UN has a position for a simultaneous translator from Toddler into English? Now that would be a job for me.