The Many Meanings of MA

Jonas is only 18 months old... he's working on his language.
Remember he's a premie, so really he's like 16 months old.  


So far he has a pretty decent repertoire of words...

Wow-wow (dog)
Pu-Pu (trying to say "pio pio" which for us hispanics is bird)
Awa (agua, water)
Ta-Ta (tap tap)
Pow-Pow (that's actually what we call spankings)
Appoo (Apple)
Papai (Dad)
Aba (what we call my mom)
Vava (Vova is what we call my MIL)
A-Baw (a ball)
Hi
Ba- Ba (bye bye)
Dee-Dee (TV)
Eye
Buboo (Bubble)
Bibi (baby)

All absolutely adorable.
But we have ONE problem... and here it is:

MaMA- (me, mama)
MAma- (Marco)
MAAA- (more)

Do you see what he does there?  Using basically the same word for 3 different purposes.  He's a clever one, I tell ya!

When he's calling me, he puts the emphasis on the final MA, so it sounds like he's yelling at me... "maMAAAA, maMAAAA!"

When he's calling Marco, he puts the emphasis on the first MA, probably because we're trying to teach him how to say his brother's name and we're always saying it like this "MAAAARRR-co".  So he says, "MAAAma".

Then when he wants more food, we teach him to say "more" or in spanish "mas" or in portuguese, "mais".  But he just says "Ma", although he'll repeat it over again like "Ma----Ma----Ma----Ma".  I know he's saying "more" because it's a short "Ma".

These intricacies, only a mother can know, tell and distinguish.  Learning your toddlers unique language is always so fun and exciting.  I'm already fluent in Marconese, but now I get to learn the complexities of a whole new language; Jonasish.