Thursday or Friday morning, Seventy-Six said ‘zoomie’ while holding aloft in his left hand and looking at a wooden cutout of a crocodile – an identification puzzle piece. Also on the floor around him were the puzzle pieces cow, eagle, rhinoceros, lion, as well as four or five others. He pronounced the “z-sound” something like ts,” but when I repeated zoomie back to him, he made eye-contact and gave me his happiest smile by way of saying, “Dad! You understood me!” He’s heard the word frequently – whenever he and the Cautious One play with little cars, she moves them around on the floor saying, “Zoomie, zoomie, zoomie!”
The Urban Dictionary defines Zoomie in ways that don’t apply to the utterances of Seventy-Six. Trying to maintain a lingusitically baby-safe environment, we don’t say “fart” in our house, we say, “toot.” Who’d’ve thought?
Christov_Tenn 