All Important Words Start With the Letter B

Ever since Lillian's first word, bus, buh has been her favorite syllable. Luckily for her, almost all important words start with the letter b. Here's a list of all the b-words she says, pronounced buh unless otherwise noted. Getting videos of her saying something is so difficult and she's picking up new words so quickly that we've decided not to try to get a video of everything.

• Baby (bee bee)
  
  
  
  
• Ball (ball)
  
  
  
  
• Balloon (ball)
  
  
  
  
• Banana (often just nana, but sometimes banana)
• Bath
• Bean
• Bear
  
  
  
  
• Bee (bee; sorry about the noise—it's a lawnmower across the street)
• Beetle (bee-tuh)
• Belly button
• Berry (bee)
  
  
  
  
• Bird (bir-dee; as you can see in this one, her pronunciation has improved over time)
• Blocks
  
  
  
  
• Book
• Box (there's a short, long cardboard box by the couch that she likes to sit on so we haven't gotten ridden of it yet)
  
  
  
  
• Bread
• Bubbles
  
  
  
  
• Bus
• Button
  
  
  
  
• Bye Bye (bye bye)

We know that she is really trying to say these words and not just buh-ing randomly because she says buh at appropriate moments, like when the bus drives by, when someone walks out a door, or when lifting up your shirt to reveal and poke your belly button. In addition to her buh, she can say the following words and animal noises [1]:

• Bear noise (growl)
• Chicken noise (buh)
  
  
  
  
• Clock noise (tongue clicks)
• Cow noise (moo!)
• Cracker (cr)
• Daddy (dada)
• Dance (da)
• Dog noise (ah ah!)
• Done (duh)
• Donkey noise (ah ah!)
• Fish noise (kissing sounds)
• Knee (nee) [2]
  
  
  
  
• Lilli (usually just li lee but sometimes buh li lee for "baby Lilli")
• Mommy (mama)
• Monkey noise (ah ah!) [3]
• Moose (moo!)
• More (me!)
• Motorcycle (muh)
• Nose (nuh)
• Poop (puh)
• Sheep noise (bah!)
• Teeth (tss)
• This (dis)
• Toes (tss)
  
  
  
  
• Uh oh! (uh uh!—Matt took this video during my second Dirty Dash [4], so  it's a little loud)
  
  
  
  
• Umbrella (bella or sometimes balella)
• Wee!
• What's that? (wa da?)
• Whoa!
  
  
  
  
• Woodpecker noise (tongue clicks)
• Yes (yah)
• Yum yum! (nyum nyum—see the banana video above)

This chart indicates that an average one-year old born at full term will know mama, dada, and one other word; advanced one-year old babies will know two other words.[5] As you can see, Lilli knows over forty words and sounds already. What a clever girl!

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Notes:

[1] There are some animals that she only knows a gesture for: elephant (makes a trunk), crocodile (claps to indicate the jaws snapping shut), and bird (flaps arms).

[2] She says it, but we're not really sure she knows what a knee is since she only says it when we remind her what it is.

[3] You can see a video of this at Matt's post Little Monkey.

[4] See my post, Dirty Dash 2012.

[5] They had essentially the same expectations at her one-year checkup. When we told our doctor that we guessed she knew about fifteen words (as you can see above we grossly underestimated), he said that was equivalent to the vocabulary of an eighteen month old baby.