Edward is learning a lot of new words. Well, okay, not a lot, but some. And the words he does know he uses a lot more often, and in increasingly appropriate situations. And then sometimes he uses his words the right way, but it is still so wrong.
Like today, for instance, we were at the grocery store and Edward decided to say goodbye to everything and everyone. Every time we passed a person in the aisles, he would wave frantically and yell “Bye Bye!” Every time we passed a loaf of bread, or a sign, or a stack of cans, he would yell “Bye Bye!” at it as loudly as possible and flail his arms around above his head. This elicited a variety of reactions, from cooing about how cute he was, to annoyed glares. Edward did not notice or care about any of this.
Another word he has recently learned is the word “cheese, and as luck would have it, we were buying some cheese today. No matter where I hid the cheese in the cart, somehow he would find it and reach it and grab it and hold it aloft and shout “Cheeee! Cheeee!” as if he had just discovered a winning lottery ticket. This met with the same reactions from the general public as when he was bidding them all fond farewells.
While I was at the deli counter waiting for, well, some more cheese, I left Edward in the cart for a few minutes, thinking I could trust him not to assault anyone. It had been maybe a minute when I turned around and saw that he had attracted an older woman, as Edwards are wont to do. She was oohing and aahing over him and generally making a fuss and I wasn’t worried about it, so I turned back to the deli counter.
A moment later I glanced around just in time to see Edward haul off and smack the woman with his bag of cheese and yell “Cheeeeeeee!” at the top of his lungs, and when the woman quickly retreated, trying to protect her head with her arms, he grinned and yelled “Bye Bye!” even louder. She ran off before I could apologize, but I did tell Edward that while the word usage was technically correct, he was still wrong. So very wrong. And bonus points for me, because I managed not to laugh until I got to the car.