Lydia and the ah-pe-tus

Lydia loves to talk. Xiao Li has started calling her "the little echo" because she gets in these moods where she repeats the last few syllables of everything she hears. It can be a little unnerving, to hear yourself in repeat, but she sometimes shortens phrases as she repeats them ending up with funny little sayings and then we're all laughing.

Her newest favorite way to spice up her conversation is to use the phrase "in a few minutes". So as she heads out of the room she'll say, "be right back, in a few minutes". She's probably said it 15 times in the past two days.


Of course, she's a little bit hard to understand. But for those of us who listen to her all day long, most of what she says is crystal clear, it's the rest of the world who needs a translator.

I would like to think that I understand her better than anyone else, but I'm afraid that title probably belongs to her big sister Julianna, who occasionally does some interpreting for me. ("Mom, she's saying penguin, she's looking for the penguin.")

Which leads me to the title of this post. Because when Lydia says "manda" she is clearly referring to a panda, and "brab" is most definitely "crab". And, I know now, what sounds to me like "Mommy find it the pink one" is, in fact, "Mommy find it the penguin".

But, what exactly do you suppose is an "ah-pe-tus"?

PS - This one I was able to figure out all on my own - and I'll tell you in the next post!