Evie has a certain way of saying things. Some of this is just kid stuff, like saying “w” instead of “L”, as in “I wove you mommy!” Some of it seems to be more based on her personally, not generic kid pronunciation. This isn’t so crazy; we all pronounce things a little differently, whether we have an accent or not. But I would expect that we would be able to trace the way she says things to the way Sara or I pronounce things. That doesn’t always seem to be the case. (Although this isn’t so crazy either, since it has been well documented that I say “both” as if it had a “w” and an “l” in it (bowlth) even though I have no idea where this came from, since I don’t know anybody who says it that way).

So in Evie-speak, any “oo” sound becomes “ew”, such as “smewch” or the way the ghost lights say “bew”. The exception to this rule is when the “oo” is followed by a “th”, which turns into a “v” and the “oo” gets extended. For example, after I shave, my face is “smooove” and Evie and mommy like to drink “smooovies”. The strangest one is that “yeah” becomes “yay-yah” – like Dave Chappelle doing a Lil’ John impression.

In a completely unrelated note, I mentioned that Evie has this thing where she re-writes her memories of events to suit herself, by asking Sara if she did something, when she knows very well Sara did *not* do that thing. The usual example is me putting on Evie’s socks and shoes to get ready to go, even though she wants Sara to do it. So after she cries and fights me, but I finally get them on, she runs tearfully to Sara and says, “Mommy, did you put on my socks and shoes?” and Sara says, “Yes.” As soon as this happens, Evie stops crying and is just as happy as if she had gotten her way in the first place and Sara really had put on her shoes.

So the other day, it was time to put Evie’s shoes and socks on, and Evie informed us that she would like “Daddy to trick [her]” by putting on her socks and shoes, after which mommy would say she did it. We went about the whole charade, complete with fake crying on her part. And after I got her shoes and socks on, she went to Sara (who had stood right there watching the whole thing) and said, “Mommy, did you put my socks and shoes on?” and after Sara said “Yes,” Evie had a big smile on her face. 

Sometimes I wonder who is tricking who.

The next day she took it a step further. This time, I wasn’t even there. She wanted Sara to put her shoes and socks on and then tell her that I was in fact there, and I had tricked her by putting her shoes and socks on and then had Sara tell Evie that it was really Sara who put her shoes on. Except, it really was Sara that put her shoes on! So it was like a secret agent double cross type situation, where she wanted Sara to lie about lying to her and it looped all around again…look, even I can barely keep up with it at this point!