Before I had a baby of my own, I always rolled my eyes when I saw other parents speaking in "Baby Talk" to their babies.* I mean, Jeez, I would think, why can't they speak to them in a normal voice? How will they ever learn to speak normally when they're older?
That, of course, all changed when Charlotte was born. Suddenly, everything that came out of my mouth was "cutesy." Socks became "sockies," feet became "feeties," naps became "nappy-naps," etc. Because the fact is, Charlotte (and most babies, I imagine) responds a lot better when we speak in high-pitched, sing-songy voices.
And I'm not alone in this change in diction. Chris, too, has made the switch to Baby Speak. But maybe to an extreme. Case in point: One night when we were in Chicago, we had just put Charlotte to bed ("nighty-night!") and were settling into an episode of Lost on my laptop. It was getting late, so Chris turned to me and said, "Okay, Stephanie. Time for sleepy-sleep." I turned to him and promptly punched him in the neck.**
*So I have to insert the caveat that I have been talking to my cats in baby voices for forever. I blame my mom.
** I didn't punch him, but I did say, "Um, you did NOT just say 'sleepy-sleep' to me!" And then I relentlessly made fun of him. Hence this post. :) (Sorry Sweetie - it's just too good to pass up!).
Funny. Eric and I totally have the baby-speak down with the dogs. We will no doubt venture into extreme baby-lingo when our bean comes. We'll be spitting our sentences like,"Does our little baby-boo wanna binkie-winkie before the sleepy-sleepy time?" For some reason our baby-speaks tends to have a lot of repetition. What you thinkie-thinkie??
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