Baby talk

What is Ambuta? That’s the latest babble from S speak. During our recent holiday she started speaking/babbling a lot. First it was a series of Dada Dada Dada Dada. While it seemed to be that she is very fond of her Dada we soon realized that Dada also covered a lot of things and general excitement in life in addition to her Dad.
There is also Mama, which can be an insistent Mamma when she means me, or Maama when she means my brothers and Mumum which means food. Baabu is her favourite –ball and Bup is balloon which we think means balloon which goes up. Dat is for duck- her bathtime toy and Babu is other small children. Babba means sleep and S says it whenever she is feeling tired, lazy or sleepy. She usually pats herself on the head while saying Babba (because we still have to rock her and pat her on her head while putting her to bed) and sometimes also does Babba to her toys. The cutest sight is S lying down on the floor, patting herself on the head and saying Babba.
Her favourite word is Upf which is a term of admonition usually said when she has got hurt banging into a table/chair/falling down etc and accompanied by a not so gentle swipe at the offensive table/chair/mama/dada. We usually say " S do Upf to table/dada/mama" to distract her from the pain. She has also recently started saying Hi to people whom she meets and who say Hi to her. Tata is bye bye and accompanied by a wave- though that usually happens after the person has said bye and left.
Ambuta is the latest addition and I am still not sure what that means- sounds similar to the name of my maid but when I ask her “Where is Ambuta” she does not point at the maid- whereas if I ask her where is “Dada” then she points at the hubby and so on..
I think she started babbling on our holiday because we started speaking so much more to her (being around her 24 hours as opposed to 3-4 hours snatched during our busy office life!) and she also heard us talking a lot to other people. We need to spend more time talking to her- right now she is exposed to three languages – English which we speak to her and to each other, Hindi, and the regional language which the maids speak to her and to each other. Soon S will be going to school - yes I have enrolled her into playschool at 16 ½ months which I agree is young- most people enroll at between 11/2 to 2 years, but I feel she is quite ready for it- she has started interacting a lot with other kids- again an outcome of our holiday where she spent a lot of time with her cousins- and seems interested in playing with them as opposed to running away with the ball they are holding; also she is restless at home and the maids are not able to actively engage her for long. My thoughts are that if she can go to school for a couple of hours in the morning, then time at home alone with maids would mostly be eating and afternoon nap, a couple of hours in the evening -and then I would be back home.
Let us see- this is not a mother toddler class- I would need to leave her there alone and I’ve heard many stories from my colleagues who have similar age children about how their kids would cry even in mother toddler, and both me and my hubby used to cry to go to school when we were young- lets hope S has a more cheerful and positive outlook!! School is scheduled to start in a couple of weeks- will update.