'Ship, Mommy!"

Last night, we had hamburgers for dinner.  Knowing Emmy's preference for ketchup, I made her little burger with cheese and ketchup.  Then I sat down to assemble my own burger. 

My daughter looks up and says, "Ship, Mommy?"

I look at her for a moment, then ask, "What do you want, honey?"

She points, and says, "Ship!"

This continues for about five minutes, as I pick up EVERY single thing on the table and say it's name.  "Do you want salt?" No.

"Do you want mommy's sandwich?"

No.

Do you want a pickle?  More drink?  A napkin?  I look at Tom, who shrugs.

Finally, at a complete loss for what "ship" could mean, I look at the last thing on the table, a giant bottle of ketchup. 

OH! I think to myself.  So I hold it up.  "Do you want ketchup, baby?"

Exuberant nodding.  "Ketship, mommy!"

So, when you come visit and I seem to be able to intuit what she wants despite her words seeming like complete nonsense, please know, it comes from exhaustive trial and error of picking things up and naming them until something sounds vaguely close.  We had this battle with necklaces, (I can't even remember her word for them, but it sounded like absolutely nothing and she kept pointing up, which made no sense, until I realized that Tom had looped a necklace over one of the cabinet knobs to get it out of her reach) oranges (ornge, mommy!), and many many other things. 

My favorite was "Myen-nyes."  Any guesses?  Myen-nyes is Daddy's favorite candy, Mike and Ikes, which he bought a bunch of tiny bags of for Halloween.  Of course, once we ran out of Mike and Ikes, she still pointed at the Halloween candy bowl, screeching for "Myennyes, mommy!"  So, one day, I gave her a tiny bag of m and m's instead, which was just fine.  So, apparently, myen-nyes means any candy.

I don't mean to make her sound like a spoiled rotten child who shrieks and gets what she wants.  She always asks very politely for what she wants, the first few times.  But when it takes me or Tom more than 3 guesses to get it, she gets frustrated.  And the screeching about the Myennyes was most likely because she knew good and well that there was still candy in the bowl (which Mommy was happily grabbing) so why would Mommy say there were no Mike and Ikes?  Once I figured out that "myennyes" was just "candy," peace was restored.  Except on the days when she asked for candy before dinner.