Socha-isms from Puerto Rico

This year we decided that we needed some "just the three of us" time, so we sadly skipped out on Savage and Jewett family Christmas celebrations in Michigan and Colorado. Instead we hopped on a JetBlue flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico for a wonderful week of tropical loveliness (unpaid endorsement: JetBlue is the best US airline to fly coach. By far. Lots of legroom, free snacks, first piece of luggage free, new planes...really quite nice). Socha was officially 3 months delayed in speech development when we last went in for a checkup (September), but I'm not concerned at all - she is picking up vocabulary/grammar at an impressive and entertaining rate. Here is the story of our Puerto Rico trip, told through Socha's mouth. Hope to post some photos soon. Until then, enjoy these Socha-isms.

TOP 14 Socha-isms from Puerto Rico, December 2013

1. Lah’-lee (rhymes with “trolley”) def: “water” Can mean water in a cup or water in the Atlantic Ocean. When she first left the bedroom in the morning she would run out to the porch shouting “lah-lee, lah-lee” and keep going down the stairs to the beach. We had to keep the front door closed to prevent lah-lee-based escapes. When riding in the car, she would point to the ocean and gleefully shout “lah-lee!”. When we were walking on the seaside malecon in Esperanza, she would tug and whimper lah-lee lah-lee because we were walking, and not swimming. 

2. Mee’-nut def: peanut (butter). Socha would suck peanut butter through a straw all day if we let her (wouldn't that be impressive?). When we did feed her peanut butter on a cracker or bread, she usually licked the peanut-buttery awesomeness off the mee-nut vector, leaving the cracker/bread naked and uneaten.

3.  Neighs  def: horse(s) – There are feral horses roaming about the island of Vieques. They’re rather fun to go horse-spotting, but you should be careful while driving, especially if you are driving a rust-bucket Jeep without functional shocks, wipers or seatbelts that you rented from Louie, the island’s notorious fixer and sometimes rent-a-car. Just sayin’. Socha may have successfully pluralized “neigh,” though sometimes she’d use “neighs” for one horse too. The horses would often had cattle egrets with them, and sometimes Socha would note those with “tweet.” I saw this random Saturday night parade in the main town of Isabel II where most of the local youth in the parade were riding horses, some with blinking red safety lights. Yes, I was sitting in the plaza doing Facebook, because that's where the free wi-fi is. (Note: this video is loud...careful with headphones.)

4.  “Yes I do!” This improbable sentence was the enthusiastic affirmative response, as in “Socha, do you want to go to the Lah-lee? Yes I do!”

5. “All day!” Another affirmative response. “Socha, do you want to eat some peanut butter? All day!” She may have been saying something else, like “OK,” but it sure sounds like “All day!”

6. puh-lay-ane def: airplane. She would point to them whenever we would see them, and even if we heard them, or if she imagined them.

7. Busss  def: bus. “Socha, do you want to ride the bus? All day! Busss!” She’ll probably feel different in 13 years or so, but right now, busses are pretty exciting. She was quite patient (excited, even) waiting 45 minutes for a bus in a stinky Old San Juan bus station. We felt a bit badly when we abandoned the bus terminal for a taxi (we were unconvinced the bus was ever coming). Luckily, she was also pretty excited to say “tak-si! tak-si!” repeatedly as we were driven back to our hotel.

8. Boad def: boat.  Continuing on our travel theme, she was a trooper on our nighttime boat tour of the amazing Mosquito bay on Vieques, full of bioluminescent dinoflagellates that allegedly make this the brightest bio-bay in world. Whenever anything disturbed the water, from the boat propeller to fish darting about, there would be streaks of blue. Most of the internet pics look kind of photo-shopped, but this one is about right. The bay was pretty neat, and the actual stars were amazing also. As we were waiting for the tour, Socha was zipping back and forth from the waiting area, through the restaurant, out to the inflatable Santa Claus, back inside to the waiting area, spin around, lay on the floor, climb on the bench, go flirt with the five-year-old boy, climb on the bench to stand up on her tip toes and try to get a map down, zip outside to the Santa Claus, and repeat. And repeat. An onlooker noted “Boy, she’s got energy,” which I believe may have been uttered a time or two in my direction when I was wee.

9. Dabb! def: crab. We saw a crab on the beach, which an older girl “helped” back into the water. After that, whenever we were wading in the water, Socha would point down to water and exclaim “Dabb!”. We searched and searched, but did not find lost Mr. Dabb.

10. Powt def: Pouch – referring to a squeeze pouch of baby food. Expensive, non-recyclable packaging, and she should have outgrown them by now, but these were comfort food in a strange land. Many powts were consumed.

11. Mama-Lama! – def: Mom, Mama, Shannon – There’s a series of children’s books about Llama Llama and his mother Mama Llama. They’re pretty cute. We only have one (and don’t read it very often), but she’s seen others at her cousins’ house and probably at daycare. If Shannon went out snorkeling, when she came back Socha would greet her with a warm squinchey face and shout “Mama Lama!”

12. Luff-lo – def: "Gruffalo". A fictional beast in the children’s book “Gruffalo.” A current favorite.

13.  “Two oh-noes” – def: two swim diapers, of the “Nemo” variety. She has a book about Finding Nemo where there is a line “Oh, no, a diver! Marlin cannot see Nemo,” so Nemo = “oh no” = swim diaper with Nemo. This is the first time I hear Socha successfully using the word/concept “two.” She also talked about a “poo” which was confusing when she hadn’t pooped, but was in fact the other variety of diaper with Winnie the Pooh on it.

14. Dang it, shoot, geez - she actually gets the pronunciation of these almost perfectly correct, especially after Mama Llama has spouted the phrase.  Luckily she hasn't used the F-bomb (yet), which we are actually pretty proud of, considering how much swearing we do in front of her.  Time for a swear jar...

Here's audio of Socha saying some of these words, plus calling me "Jeff," talking about going to "down" (town) and playing with her "bucket.