As Isaac's grandparents can attest, his vocabulary and speaking skills have grown exponentially in the past three months.  Literally every day he adds three or four words to his vocabulary and every week or so he doubles the length of his sentences.  Pushing out all of this new data is taxing on his little tongue and sometimes he isn't exactly clear.  To help, I have compiled an Isaac to English Dictionary with phonetic spellings of Isaac's pronunciations. 

Idik=Isaac

This is a very important word, not only because it is his name but also because Isaac refers to himself in the third person.  It is a gut buster to here him talk about himself.  He sounds like The Rock ("Do you SMELL what Idik is cookin'?").

Go Di Dees=Goldfishes

These have become a favorite snack and so we hear this a lot.  Each time it is hilarious.

Cu Bus=School Bus

He has become really skilled at finding school buses and thrills in pointing them out, so just about any car ride will have a few "Cu Bus" hollers in it.  Note: all buses are "Cu Buses."

Idik Hep Oo=Isaac Help You

He is, after all, a helpful kid, whether it is cutting up tree branches for firewood or working as a prep chef for Mom in the kitchen.

Idik Lo Lak It=Isaac No Like It

For example:

ME: Isaac, it is time to go inside
Isaac: No.
ME: Isaac, I am going to pick you up and BRING you inside.
Isaac: NO! Idik Lo Lak It!

Happy Birthday Donut=Happy Birthday Jonah

Isaac has a friend at Goddard named Jonah and he recently had a birthday.  Isaac sang this for about a week and I cried laughing, imagining a boy named "Donut" being serenaded by 14 two year olds.

Cu Me=Excuse Me!

See here for more on Cu Me.

Mommydaddy=No literal translation; effectively--"I need everyone's attention RIGHT NOW."

When he gets really, really excited he just shouts out the two names he uses the most and they blend into one word.  It is an exclamation, like EUREKA! It works in the same places. 

"EUREKA! I have just found gold!"
"MOMMYDADDY! I have just found Go Di Dees!"

Idik Teep Ober=Isaac Tipped Over

For some reason Isaac has loved to ditch his push car into a pile of leaves, falling purposely and dramatically on to the stack of yard debris.  After this he loudly declares: "Idik Teep Ober!"

BLLLLLUE=Blue

See also BLLLLLACK.

BLLLLLACK=Black

See also BLLLLLUE.

Edadent=Elephant

One of Isaac's favorite animals, in large part because of an awesome cardboard cut out he received for Christmas last year from his auntie and uncle, is an elephant.  I also happen to make an uncannily accurate elephant noise, perhaps increasing his enjoyment of the giant pachyderm.

T-Gex=T-Rex

Every two year old on the planet, knows and loves the Tyrant Lizard, but few can pronounce his name correctly.  This is Isaac's shot at it.

Wireduck=Fire Truck

This is exactly how he says it: WIRE DUCK.  This is not like an approximation, it is EXACTLY what he says.  And he does it as a chant, a loud chant: WIREDUCK, WIREDUCK, WIREDUCK!  No reason really, just an expression of happiness like whistling, but about fire trucks.

More Isaac to English as it comes up.

We have been working on potty training for a while.  Isaac has been peeing and pooping in his potty for more than 6 months, but it was always when we directed it, usually at the end of the day.  We have decided, based on cues he has given us (cues, not "cu me"), to give him control.  But it is not easy.  Isaac has so many things he'd rather be doing than pooping and peeing that if left up to him, he'd never go or would get changed once a day. 

We are using a variant on the M&M method, using Rolos instead.  Every time Isaac let's us know he needs to go, then goes to the bathroom in his potty, and washes his hands he gets a Rolo.  They are perfect treats, not too big, contained in a shiny gold wrapper, and I put them on top of the mirrors in both bathrooms so that he can see them, like glittering promises of reward.

This Sunday we decided to focus just on potty training.  We didn't go anywhere or do anything outside the house (in part because it was pouring down rain).  We put Isaac in his little undies, which are insanely cute, and let him run around.  About every 15 minutes or so, we'd ask if he needed to use the john.  He said yes once and we showed him how the Rolo thing worked.  He loved it.

About two hours later he again told us he wanted to go to the potty.  He had to pee this time (he usually tells you "pee coming" or "poop coming") and we did the ritual--rush to bathroom, pull down pants, sit him on his potty, wait, and then check for actual excrement (with a level of excitement only parents in potty training can understand).  This time there was a distinctive, but small puddle of bright yellow urine in his potty.  We did the handwashing and the pee dumping (not in that order) and then gave him his candy.

He quickly chucked it in his mouth and then, with a pie hole crammed with chocolate and caramel, he told us again "pee coming."  The ritual happened again and again he produced a distinctive, but small puddle of bright yellow urine his potty.  This time he demanded a Rolo right away.  We made him wash his hands and again before he left the bathroom he told us, "pee coming."

Isaac broke the rewards system in one day, two tries really.  It was insane.  And it is proof that without regulation, a system based on rewards will always be corrupted.  There are too many people trying to game the system for the rules at the outset, or no rules at all, to work.  The result will be chaos, where greed and self-interest always win.

And Mitt Romney has too many Rolos as it is.  

Isaac is learning all kinds of new things at school and home.  One of them is manners.  We have had the "please" and "thank you" thing working for more than a year now, but a recent addition to the manners play book is absolutely hilarious. 

Imagine the class room at Goddard--full of colorful toys, three impossibly nice teachers, and 10 or 12 dervishes of energy.  There are bound to be collisions and mix ups.  One kid is almost certainly going to get in another kid's way.  Whether it is going for a toy or getting to a particularly choice pillow for nap time--these dozen or so dervishes are going to impact each other at some point. 

So the teachers have begun working on the phrase "excuse me" (there is not much use for it here at home as Isaac has free reign).  The kids seem to have only part of the context down.  Isaac knows it is used when someone is in your way and you want to get through, but he seems to think that once you say "excuse me" you can do whatever you want to get by. 

At the train table on Sunday morning I got an elbow and a stiff arm mixed into a quick litany of "excuse me", which, when said by I-man in rapid succession sounds like: "cu me, cu me, cu me [elbow to the eye socket] cu me, cu me, cu me [stiff arm to the bridge of the nose] cu me, cu me, cu me."  Once they start up, the "cu me" litany turns our little two year old boy into the combination of a running back, a bulldozer, and the comic book villan Juggernaut. 

Next time someone gets in your way, say cu me, head butt them, and keep going.  Or not.