strange animal sounds

have to update with the bean's latest: making animal sounds for the beasts she recognises instead of saying their names.

she used to be able to say "cat" and "dog" but now she prefers to just make muffled woof-ing (for 'dog') and a strange kind of strangled noise for cats. (or has she forgotten how to say the words?!) 'cow' is of course just a "mooooo", and 'sheep' is "ba".

with dh's encouragement, she now can raise her right arm followed by an approximate elephant bellow. a guttural pseudo-growl is for 'lion'. she can make the sign for 'monkey', which she does by raising both elbows (arms akimbo) and hanging her hands down, but she doesn't do the "oo oo oo" noise yet.

the only animal she can pronounce is "duck"!

she still calls a butterfly "fwy" and a flower "fwah". "Car" and "star" are okay though. but for 'aeroplane' she would do twists with raised elbows and make a "rrrrr" noise.

her favourite books are dear zoo, the karen katz baby box of fun trio, and poppy cat's dream. (generally, lift-the-flap type books score well with the bean.) when she first received the last mentioned --- it was one of her 1st birthday's prezzies --- she would be happy to hear it read half a dozen times. it's usually this book she's thinking of when she insists on a "buk".

her funniest words/phrase though is "ah oh" for "uh oh" . it therefore amuses her popo greatly to say "ah pei" (teochew for "ah white") in response, as "ah oh" sounds like "ah black" in the chinese teochew dialect.

ok, a list of the other things she knows (that i can remember off the top of my head):
- body parts: elbow, hands, fingers, toes*, feet, knees, bellybutton, head, hair, ears, nose, mouth, teeth (which she shows me by opening her mouth and running her tongue over her top row of 4 teeth!), and tongue (she waggles her tongue and makes a funny ululating sound)
- other animals & things: chair, door, hat, shoes, socks*, baby, bird, fish, octopus, dolphin, giraffe, bear*, frog* ("fwog"), rabbit, caterpillar, turtle, polar bear, snake, apple ("puh"), milk, mommy, daddy, popo
- concepts & actions: bye*, round*, up & down (most of the time i think), pat, clap, walk, no (but she does it anyway!...roll eyes...), sing, dance, kiss

*words she would actually try to say, even if some are not very distinct sounding.