Saturday, October 06, 2007

Hepaloo?

How do you correct those pesky little pronoun errors, anyway?

When Ella wants us to help her with something--- a tricky strap on a sandal, trying to get her dollar-store mermaid doll to stay on its cheap-o seashell stand, taking the wrapper off of a Hershey's kiss--- she asks "Hepaloo?" If we don't respond in .025 seconds, she repeats the request, in increasing pitch, urgency and frequency: "Hepaloo!? Hepaloo!!? Hepaloo!?!!" (This is accompanied by a sort of spastic hippity-hopping/running in place foot dance-- and if we have failed to respond by .05 seconds, she will collapse in a heap on the floor, sobbing.) We try not to let it get that far.
Our response is to say "Do you want me to help you with that?" And she says, in the affirmative, "Hepaloo!"
What she's saying is "Help you?"
Meaning, of course, "(Will you) help ME?"
But we can't ever figure out how to model the 'me' part, since the only way to say it TO her is by using 'you'......
English.....!
We know she'll self-correct soon enough-- (she's already begun to put the "oxy" in the dog's name, so she's now more often "Woxy" than "Woky")--
So for now, we're just enjoying the cuteness of "Hepaloo!"

An update on "What Ella is listening to these days..."
Now she has a thing for Amy Winehouse.
Seriously. She will even sing along to the chorus in 'Rehab': "No, no, no!"