Ish!

Jen made a list of Oscar's words so far:

Book Ball Hello Kitty Dog
Meow Bow-wow Banana Apple Bubble
Baby Bath Cheese Baa! Bird
More Head Feet Teeth Nose
Quack Fish Up Papa Mama
Hello Bye Tiger Fish Roar

He learned a few new ones this weekend. We did some marathon animal-gawping, visiting the New York Aquarium at Coney Island and the Bronx Zoo. At the aquarium, he kept pointing and saying "Ish! Ish!"

At the zoo, it was all about the tigers. And the goats and the sheep (which he applauded), but the tigers were new. One of the things that really confounds me about early childhood development -- and I'm sure the experts have a word for it -- is how babies make the connection between actual things and representations of them. How does an actual lion relate to a picture of a lion, much less the illustrations they see in books long before they ever encounter a National Geographic special or spy one at the zoo? How do they even recognize patterns in illustrations, given how much they vary stylistically?

But sure enough, we were down in the tiger tank, and we saw a few real ones pacing or, more often, sleeping, as one does when there's a mob of hooting primates on the other side of the glass. And after we excitedly told him what they were a couple dozen times, he said "Diger!" And I told him that tigers roar like lions, which he knows about from illustrations and his favorite plush toy. As we exited, we passed a picture of a tiger, and he pointed and said "Roar!"