Kate says...

A lot of things, these days. I've always been impressed by her level of comprehension and I figure I really ought to capture her tremendous growth in this area since it'll soon zoom by and I'd have forgotten plenty of it.

What's impressive is her level of absorbance of words and things all around. Say it once or twice and Kate will remember. She also manages to piece words together and form simple sentences that mean everything, making it absolutely possible to have a conversation with her (when she's not whiney and cranky). Kate is bilingual. Besides a smattering of Hokkien (tham tham - wet wet/ giam giam - salty) & baby talk (orh orh - sleep/ bom bom - bathe), Kate speaks in both English and Mandarin. She can work on improving pronunciation of many words, that's for sure, but hey! Kate's 6wks short of turning TWO so I say 100% effort baby!

Here's a list of things that she says and I'm sure I'll have missed out plenty:

Good morning xxx (she does this in the form of a song sometimes, sung to the tune of "happy birthday")

Baby want to eat xxx (her vocabulary of food is endless, as it is the love of her life. Durian! Biscuit! Rice! Rou rou (meat)! Strawberry! Pizza (newly learned word of tonight)! Milk! Bread! Bao bao (bread/bun)! This one! while pointing to whatever she wants to eat.)

I want to drink water (she refers to herself as "I", or "baby" or "Kate")

Don't want bom bom

Person: Kate drink water/wash yr hands/ fill-in-action. Kate: no need.

I'm tired. Sleep for 2minutes (proceeds to plonk herself on bed for 2 secs)

Mama/Papa/whoever, pls help me. (when desperate or impatient, she'll says many "pleases") Please please please. (when SUPER impatient and cranky - she just cries)

Mama (fill in blank for whoever she's talking to, but for ease I'll just use "Mama") where's Barney/Hi5/Pocoyo? (proceeds to pretend hunt for either the laptop or the iPhone - this is her sneaky way of saying I want to watch xxx on Youtube)

Oh! Barney is there?!? (This is said when she spots the iPhone, and said with excitement as she'll then proceed to lunge for the phone and proceed to navigate to Youtube. O yes, it's also usually accompanied by a hearty giggle)

Baby want to see Barney/Hi5/Pocoyo (again, her never-ending love affair with these creatures)

Mama come, eat rice (we teach her to call everyone to the dining table when it's meal time)

Mama wake up! Open the door pls, baby want to go outside

Yiyi is naughty. Nai nai beat!

Papa is working (sounds like walking)

Papa is jeeping (sleeping)

Conversation with Care Bear in car: Bear bear, you go nai nai hse, yes? Yes! Go nai nai hse.

Baby WANT MILK!

Where's playground? Mama play with me (she refers to wooden blocks as 'playground' cos she prefers I build a make-shift slide for her to play than stacking them up high)

Read book? (She'll then proceed to pull open her drawer of books and pull out which she prefers to read for that moment)

Chi da da bao bao (Eat big piece of bread. Being greedy, she's now insistent that she eats everything in a large portion. No longer can we get away with tearing a tiny piece of food for her. So everything to her is "da da")

Wo bu yao zhe ge, wo yao zhe ge (I don't want this, I want that)

Hen chou, hai shi hen chou (smelly, still very smelly)

BU YAO BU YAO BU YAO (no! no! no!)

Baby chuan xue, yao qu (Baby wear shoes, I wanna go)

Mama don't sad/cry (The first time I said this was to the bestie's baby and I encouraged Kate to coax the crying baby to stop crying. Since then, she's learnt to apply these words to other right situations. One time, she'd been naughty and hit my arm. I put on a sad face and said "Mama pain". She said those words in response to me!)

Sing song (and proceeds to sing the song of the moment. I love hearing her sing)

....

OK I'm tired of recounting everything that Kate can say, but I guess this is a good enough demonstration of how chatty my baby is. Though, she's no longer that much a baby anymore! How fast they grow!