What's Updee?

"A child seldom needs a good talking to as a good listening to."  ~Robert Brault

As we've worked on getting her off the pacifier during the day, Maeve has come up with a few choice observations about the world around her.

The problem is, I don't speak Maevish.

She has started saying words like updee and schwa, repeating them throughout the day in a variety of situations and without pointing to anything.  That is to say, I have no idea what she means.

I'm very happy that she's getting into a phase of communicating more; she can now successfully apply "uh oh" to two situations: either the kitchen gate is open or the credits are running on her dvd.  Also she makes a loud, spitty "p" sound for her pacifier, and says up or out when she wants to exit the crib.  So updee does not seem to relate to up, or oops, or happy, or anything else I can think of that vaguely resembles updee.

I assume when she discusses schwa that she's referring to the upside down e that signifies the "uh" sound so common in American English.  Or possibly the Old English word swa which meant as.  We have very high-level linguistic discussions during the day.  Oh, and I'm a huge English nerd.  Wonder if I can pass that on to Maeve by reinterpreting her babble as obscure English terms.

All I can say is, I do know know precisely what updee or schwa are pertaining to, but it sure is fun to hear her talk, and do my best to keep up.  

She's saying something important, I'm sure.