People say.... babies who start walking early will start talking late and vice versa.
At 15 months, Arissa talks mostly 'baby' language- most of which are gibberish to our ears- but its encouraging to see she wants to communicate and seems to understand most of what we're telling her. She can point to all the right body parts and make the correct animal sounds for
:: lion (roars)
:: monster (groans)
:: cat (high pitched "yaaaaaah?")
:: dog (grunts "uh uh").
I usually gesture a lot whilst giving instructions to help her comprehend but last week, I only looked her in the eye and said "Arissa, take your choochoo (milk) bottle from the bedroom. Mummy need to wash it". And she understood!!! I was ecstatic when she bounced back into the kitchen, a minute later, with the milk bottle in question (OK, so ideally I shouldn't be using baby words like 'choochoo' but if she can understand the other parts of the instructions, then I can just about substitute everything into adult language pretty soon).
Her first words, as my goldfish brain remembers them were....
MAMAM [pronounced 'mum mum']
She loops them "mamamamamamamaam" and it means "give me some food woman!"
THERE [pronounced 'deh']
as in
Me: "Arissa, where is Mummy?"
A: "Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh!" (then points at me cheekily)
KATAK (frog in Malay) [pronounced 'ke-tah']
My mum taught her this from the Winnie the Pooh books she's been reading.
TOK (grandpa in Malay) [pronounced as is]
My babysitter taught her this one by pointing to her husband and repeating "tok! tok! tok!"
BYE BYE [pronounced 'bah bah']
This comes with the territory of salams and flying kisses.
I think she is doing pretty well in her own pace although a little slower than I'd like. But what the heck am I complaining about, as my MIL says "Once she starts talking, we'd wish she hadn't started so soon!"