And now, time to share another conversation, this time with Madeleine (which admittedly means it was rather one-sided.) First, a little background: for whatever reason, Madeleine derives immense pleasure from hearing someone say "A-boo!" to her. I find this really fascinating, since it seems to me that she's actually associating that particular phrase with something humorous; if we make the same facial and bodily gestures but say something else, she just stares at us like we're too embarrassing for her to waste her time with us. But if we say "A-boo!" she'll flash us one of her winning smiles, and if we repeatedly say "A-boo!" she'll usually start giggling.
MADELEINE: fussing because I left the room, even though I'm still in eyesight.
ME: It's okay, Madeleine! (looking at her and smiling): A-boo!
MADELEINE: smile forming around the edges of her pacifier.
ME: A-boo!
MADELEINE: Wider smile, almost loses pacifier, latches back onto it with a vengeance.
ME: A-boo-boo!
MADELEINE: Clearly overwhelmed by the magnitude of her joy, smiles widely, flaps arms ecstatically, loses balance and flails around, nearly toppling over, regains balance, and resumes serious, I'm-about-to-fuss expression.
The question is...how did you ever figure out that she likes "A-boo!" Someone had to have said it at one point...so does that make her weird or you guys weird?
ReplyDeleteWell, it came out of "A-goo," which our neighbor's baby really likes. He apparently says "A-goo" (which is a pretty standard first vowel-consonant combination for babies) so Julia learned to say "A-goo" to Quinn to make him smile. She tried that with Madeleine, and it quickly evolved into "A-boo" (maybe because of peek-a-boo?) and that was an even bigger hit than A-goo. Go figure. I don't understand baby humor.
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