Ninny Himmy

As a principle, I try to talk to Kate like I talk to any other person. I do my best to acknowledge the fact that she's still learning the English language and stretch myself to communicate concepts as simply as possible, but it's kind of the same as when I'm talking about math or physics to people without a background in the topic - I do it with respect and understanding that this is a smart person who just needs the idea communicated basically.

My friend Alli does this beautifully. When I first observed her with her son Andrew 3 years ago, it was huge in helping me realize I could be a good mother to a baby/toddler. I think I thought that to be good at parenting small children you needed to talk in a weird high voice (you know I'm an alto so that wouldn't work) and use phrases like "de do bo be ga" or other such nonsense. Alli just talked to Andrew like a normal person, and probably not uncoincidentally, Andrew is an excellent communicator.

But I do have at least one exception to this principle...

Kate LOVES Nikki. Everytime Nikki comes to visit, Kate gets SO excited. Her enthusiasm is so overwhelming, it actually moves her to dancing. When Nikki arrives, Kate runs around the house doing a little dance. She goes up the hall bopping back and forth, and then bops and spins around in our entryway. It is adorable and hilarious. We coined her dance the "Nikki Shimmy."

But Kate has trouble pronouncing words that have a similar first and second syllable, and often just repeats a version of the first syllable twice (e.g. Tara is Ta-Ta and Nikki is Ninny.) So when Kate tries to pronounce the dance as she's doing it, she calls it the "Ninny Himmy." It cracks me up. It doesn't help that she puts her fingers up by the side of her head and starts bouncing back and forth saying "Ninny Himmy, Ninny Himmy."

So, I've given up on this one and agree that the dance is called the "Ninny Himmy." I've spent a lot of time teaching her the correct pronunciation of Nikki and she can now say it correctly, but the dance move may keep its given name - "Ninny Himmy."

As I always say, rules were meant to be broken!