I Call Me ‘Nana’

It is a great milestone when a child recognizes that the name being called out is it’s own and responds to it. This began happening with Riana a short while back and it’s great that we can get her attention without having to use “yo” and “hey”.

In her growing vocabulary, both spoken and understood, she can now clearly look at me or her mother and say “dada” and “mama”. Looking at the numerous pictures in the bedrooms of her and us, she points to the picture and correctly identifies the person who’s carrying her.

We, however, noticed that sometimes she would say “nana” and then go on to say “dada” or “mama”. Naturally, we assumed she was mixing up the words or just outright clobbering some word. Then, we realized that Riana is actually repeating the words that we tell her, or at least she pronounces something that sounds like the word we said.

It is then we realized that she’s actually referring to herself as ‘nana’ since she can’t clearly enunciate Riana yet. Listening to her repeat the birds and animals she sees in her books are quite a thrill and very funny.

Cheers