4/27/10

Nien-nos and A-guhngh guhng guhngs

Living with a toddler requires a lot of investigation and translation.  My son's favorite animals are "nien-no"s and "a-guhngh guhng guhng"s.  A "nien-no" is easy enough to figure out...he means rhino. But without the picture above, you would probably never guess that an "a-guhngh guhng guhng" is a penguin. How did "penguin" become "a-guhngh guhng guhng"? My wife figured it out. A penguin waddles so we say "waddle, waddle, waddle" when we see one at the zoo or in a picture. So he is really trying to say "waddle, waddle, waddle" which is what he thinks a penguin is called.  He also rocks his head from side to side when he says it, looking very geeky and adorable.

3 comments:

Craig said...

Aren't babies the best? I have an 18 month old girl myself, and she does the same thing. We used to say bow-wow for dogs, so now every time she sees a dog, she thinks it's a bow-wow. Unfortunately, at some point it became pretty much all four legged animals, so now cats, bears, pokemon, etc. are pretty much bow-wows in general.

sam said...

Isn't that why we do what we do? gotta love it. Our little guy james (My wife calls him my minnie me) would talk about "Bloody Ogens" when he talked about something scary. Finally figured out where he got that. We watched The Ghost and Mr Chicken with him and the "Blood stains on the organ keys" stuck with him as something to represent all things scary. "And they used Bonn amy!"
Here is a clip of my mini me and me;

http://samkirkman.blogspot.com/2009/08/silly-things-and-why-we-do-them.html

Denver Wagner said...

Kids certainly do affect how we look at the world. I wrote a poem once called "Everything New" which I lost, but it was about seeing the world from the perspective of very young eyes. It must be magical! As artists/creators we try to hold on to that sense of awe and appreciate the world around us. Those funny little people are helpful in that endeavor.

Thanks for the comments, guys!