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Yaybug ... nuh yaybug ... nuh yaybug
Tuesday, July 20, 2010 at 06:44PM 
I wish you could hear my granddaughter, Allissa, talk. Well, actually she babble-talks. Incessantly.
Allissa turned two in April. Linguistically she's on a par with a university freshman after a keg party.
The term "punch drunk" comes to mind. Words are her hooch.
Like for example, she has this book called Seek and Find Colors that literally you cannot show her enough times.
It contains approximately eighteen thousand pictures of animals, insects, plants, foods, and assorted other items ... all conveniently (and often creatively) color coded.
The idea is for the little kid to learn colors and objects all at one time. Like, a lemon is yellow so the lemon will be on the yellow page.
It's easy! I caught on the first time she showed it to me.
But what's so hysterical when it comes to Allissa is to watch her with that pointer finger at the ready, intently eyeballing the book, waiting to touch the object you name.
Or, if you want to skew the paradigm, you can do the pointing and ask her to do the identifying.
That's when the situation becomes almost unbearably adorable, inducing (for me anyway) a sensation of exquisite pain.
It goes thusly:
Q. Lissy, what color is this page?
A. Geen!
Green. I hope even if I live to be too old to laugh and cry at the same time (something I'm very good at ... perhaps because I practice so much), I will never forget the way Allissa says "green."
Geen!
On the wed red page, amid the strawberries and the roses and the tomatoes and the patent-leather maryjanes, there's a certain tiny bug with black dots on its back. Actually there are about fifty of them.
She zeroes in on the critters almost before you can ask the question.
Q. What're those, Liss?
A. Yaybug. Nuh yaybug ... nuh yaybug ... nuh yaybug!
Ladybug ... another ladybug ... another ladybug ... another ladybug!
I do not have words to describe the way it sounds. Nor have I made a YouTube.
Suffice it to say, the earnestly-innocent-precocious-cuteness factor goes out of the stratosphere and into the next galaxy, where reside such relentlessly awwwww-worthy things as beagle puppies, baby elephants, and yellow chickies newly hatched.
So today when I was at the store and I saw a ladybug-themed windchime for five dollars?
And I was in the market, as it were?
I bought it and, upon arriving home, I installed it.
Every time I look at it I hear that sweet little voice.
Yaybug! ... nuh yaybug nuh yaybug nuh yaybug!
I wish everyone in the world could hear her say it at least once. Before she learns how to pronounce her l's and d's and th's and r's like a big girl ... and her two-year-old yaybug-loving self is gone forever.
Reader Comments (8)
This is the most adorable blog post of all time. The only way you could top it is if you showed photos of Allissa holding a kitten or puppy!
Sweet, precious memories! Hold on to these tight!
What could we do to stop them from growing up? I don't know about you but I got to love some really neat bugs when my kids were little, I'm now well into rainbows.
Kev ... funny you should say that because Lissy is always in hot pursuit of "Habee" ... in fact, whenever she sees any of us that's the first thing she says: "Where Habee at?" Javier spends his time in her presence trembling, trying to get away. Chihuahuas famously do not care for children! But maybe I should find another puppy to pose her with! GREAT idea.
Donna M. ... that's so true. Having children taught us nothing if not the brevity of the whole thing! So fragile.
Irene ... as a rule I don't like bugs one little bit, but it's easy to love a ladybug! Rainbows are a joy to behold and it's easy to see why you're well into them.
Ahhhh....Well......Do a video and post it!! That way you'll have a recording of it!!
It's easy to do! I go to YouTube and upload mine!
Bet she's a doll!
hughugs
I love ladybugs. Growing up, we called them "ladybirds", which seems kinda whimsical, don't you think? My grandkids prefer roly-poly bugs, which is gross. They play with them and carry them around in their hands until they expire from too much love. And then I don't cry.
How sweet.
Your trees remind me our our place.
Donna, you're right! I should do that before she learns how to pronounce it!
Sue ... ladybirds is indeed a whimsical spin on yaybug. Rolypoly bugs are indeed GROSS and i can't stand the thought of their expiration at the hands (or in the hands) of your grandchildren! But I would so not cry either.
Debbie ... I think you're much deeper in the country than we are, but the trees just beyond our privacy fence are tall and lush and wonderful! I never get tired of looking at them or hearing the wind in their branches ... and then invariably, at least once a year, a branch crashes down ONTO our privacy fence!