When Ishu first started putting sounds together, he could say a couple things.

“Mama, papa, nana, dada” for Mama, papa, Nani/Nanu, and Dadi.

He called all the Masis and Masus “Maaaaa” and he called his Badi Nani “Baaaa.”

“Babaji” (paternal grandfather) was harder for him to say. We’d get an occasional “Ba Jai!” out of him. But three sounds is still something he’s learning how to do.

Patting Out the Syllables

To help him, we started patting our leg as we said each syllable. “Ba” (pat), “ba” (pat), “ji” (pat).

(You can take the mama out of the classroom, but you can’t take the teacher out of the mama, you know?)

It’s quite possibly the cutest thing to watch him pat out his sounds. And I think it helps him!

Every time we say a new word a couple times, he will bring his hand up and down and say SOMETHING that resembles what we’re trying to say.

Rhino? “eye oh!”

Turtle? “tuh tuh!”

With this method, we’ve gotten a few “Babajis” out of him and it makes me smile every time. Especially because he’s SO excited when he says it that he’ll try again right away and say something completely different. HA.

He’s our little parrot. Our little monkey. And whatever we do, he attempts to do it too.

The other day, we were Portaling his Dadi and Babaji. And Dadi said, “Ishu, can you say Babaji?” as she patted out the sounds on her thigh. “Ba-ba-ji?”

He was sitting in his high chair. He started to bring his arm below the tray. Squishing it under the tray. I was trying to figure out what was going on. Did he drop some food? Was he uncomfortable? Was he trying to get out?

And then quickly realized, no, he was trying to gain access to his thigh to pat out the syllables.

Just like Dadi did.

Hahahah. This sweet little copycat of ours makes us smile so big all the time. He is literally a SPONGE right now and I love watching him soak everything up.