what the heck is she saying?!

Excuse my break from running, triathlon training, and food to talk a little bit about MacKenna today.  I haven’t really talked much about her lately, besides what she’s been eating, so I figure I owed you guys a post on our current problem.  And maybe one of you can actually help us!

We’ve known for a long time now that MacKenna has Matt’s personality.  OK, she has my temper, but she’s a smart, funny, spunky little girl who definitely takes after her daddy more than her mommy.  Well, she does look a lot more like me than she does him – or at least according to this picture.

Matt and I have very different personalities.  We have a few of the same interests, but for the most part, we are completely opposite.  I’m a rule follower, he’s a rule bender.  I’m an introvert, he’s an extrovert.  I’m analytical, he’s very creative.  Of all those things, MacKenna definitely is following more after him than she is after me.

What this really boils down to is that she is a talker.  She wakes up talking and she goes to bed talking.  She has well over 100 words now and will repeat ev-er-y-thing that was say.  (We are really having to watch our mouths now.  Thankfully, neither of us cuss like a sailor, but we are certainly more careful around her now.)  We absolutely love being able to communicate with her.  She can tell us exactly what she wants:  bite, outside, makeup (she LOVES playing with my makeup), “beep beep” (car), more, all done, “rock” (up in a chair), down, milk, fish (goldfish cracker), cereal, yogurt, Elmo, Minnie, Dora, etc., etc., etc.

However, we don’t always understand everything she says.  It took us forever to figure out that “rock” meant she wanted to sit in her rocking chair and, well, rock.  And just the other day, Matt and I were having a conversation and said “OK”.  We heard MacKenna saying something and finally figured out that she was repeating “OK”, only it sounded like “Ooooh-tay”.  Too cute!

But, of all the things we’ve figured out she was saying, there is one thing that we have been stumped on for a week now…

mokabee

Pronounced mocha-bee.  We know that it means she wants something.  She’ll pretty much walk up to anything in the house and say, “mokabee?” with the question mark at the end.  She’ll point, say it, and we’ll give her whatever she wants, and that will usually satisfy her.  But, what exactly is she saying?!

When I was right around her age, my parents had the same difficulty with me.  My word was “a ta ta da”.  We were at the zoo or Disneyland or something like that and I kept saying “a ta ta da”.  My Uncle Rob was determined to figure it out, so he kept pointing to things and asking, “Is this a ta ta da?”  I would shake my head no and he would move on to the next.  Finally, they pointed to the choo choo train and I screamed, “A TA TA DA!”  Mystery solved.  (My mom tells this story much better than I do, so maybe she’ll correct me in the comments.)

Since we know she only says it when she wants something, we can’t exactly go around pointing to things, so instead we’ve been trying phrases and listening to her repeat it.  We’ve tried “more please” but that sounds different.  We thought maybe it was “MacKenna…” something, but MacKenna sounds like “maka” which is different that “mokabee”.  We’re at a loss.  So, if you think you might have any inkling of an idea of what “mokabee” might mean, PLEASE help us out here!

Do you have any idea of what “mokabee” means?  Has your child ever said a word that you just can’t figure out?