Aug 20, 2009

Triplet-Speak


Made-up words, sounds, symbolic noise that one triplet originates and the rest agree upon to mean something. This is how the boys sometimes communicate outside Webster's.

Examples of Triplet-Speak:
Ah-new: orange, both color and fruit. (Sidenote: Tsega recognizes the color pink but instead of saying pink, he points and hums the Pink Panther tune.)

Bee-bee with an arm swirling around: let’s go somewhere in the van.

Ba-Ba: brother, Bereket, or Sira (Tsega cannot distinguish between his 2 identical brothers thus both are Baba).

Ma caw (i.e., my car): mine (doesn’t have to be a car).

N-guh: (1) all done; (2) give me that (ie, you’re all done); (3) hear ya go.

Annie: owie (as if every owie is a cat scratch but not necessarily from Annie, one of our many cats). Disclaimer: I don't believe Annie has ever harmed a hair.

Gn (difficult to put letters to--guttural and comes from the nasal passages): shoes, please find my shoes.

Abby-Abby: bunny, or Bugs Bunny.

Loo-loo-lala or just Loo-la: yet to be determined; a private joke of Sira's that always makes him laugh. When in doubt, Loo-la.

Oh, and Tsega tells tall ones. Apparently every day that I am not stay-at-home, either daddy or nanny take him to the zoo to watch the monkeys (they don't). And the dog ate his eyeball and at least part of his foot. And he will tell you, no no no, climb that fence and go near the river and you will be spanked. Yes, all that from about 3 words and lots of arm waving.

BTW, mama is dead. It's now Mommy and just plain Mom. And always respond to Mom! when it comes from Tsega because he is surely tattling on something naughty the "twins" are working on. Like climbing clear on top of the van. No, no, no!

9 comments:

MoonDog said...

my how they've grown!

ts said...

Oh, we just switched over to mommy from mama too. Its sweet and a little sad.

Nancy said...

LOL! The last piece of your post had me laughing out loud. Cindy, I can't even imagine 3. My butt is pretty well kicked with one.

M had speech issues and with intervention is back on track. Though we are noticing that she says a lot of things that don't make sense. I don't know if this is part of being 3 and her just so much wanting to imitate adult conversation; or that it is something else. We'll see.

It's amazing how moms (and sometimes dads - though not in our case) can make out what our kids are saying through the smallest utterance!

Ashley said...

loved this post...even my daughter whose 7 still calls me "mama". when they try to call me anything else, i start calling them "george". they go back to "mama" pretty quickly. :)

Heather said...

Love this post! I post sometimes about our boys' twinspeak, but it is SOOOO much more fun to read about other multiples' language!! (and a relief to know we're not the only ones with this craziness going on). But seriously, I always think, in moments of insanity around here, "WOW, HOW DOES ANYONE DO TRIPLETS?" Hat's off to you Mama!
;)
hbj

Sharon and Michael said...

Your boys are gorgeous.

My kids call me mommy. In China, their caregivers were called "Mama". I don't ever want them to associate me with jsut being a cergiver.

Dianne said...

How the heck did they get on TOP of the van??? Good for Tsega, he's helping you out big time :)

Dianne said...

P.S. Sira looks so big! He's looking a lot like the really cute boys I taught who were from Eritrea.

Kristin @ Intrepid Murmurings said...

Great post! What funny smart boys you have!

My older daughter (3yo) also can't tell her identical sisters (15 months) apart. It is vexing to me because I want her to not lump them together, want her to know each one individually. I'm sure it will come, though, eventually.

We have the gutteral "ng" thing too, meaning lots of things at this point. Funny!