M want a cracker?

I live with a human parrot. Everything I say, M repeats. No matter if it is one word, or 10 words, she tries her hardest to repeat it. Being a woman that talks like a drunken sailor on shore leave, I have been trying my best to curb the use of the four letter words. I believe I have been somewhat successful, but my husband would beg to differ. Yes, I may have let a few f-bombs slip here and there while he is around, but overall I am toning it down a lot more. Even my mother told me to watch what I say around her back in December, and then she proceeded to say "oh God!" in front of her, and now you will here "oh gah!" every now and then from M still to this day.

But it has gotten to the point where she seriously repeats everything I say. If I am on the phone with my husband she will sit in front of me and mimic my actions by holding an object up to her ear as if it were a phone and then babbling incoherently while I am talking.

If I say "want to go outside" she will say "wan go ow-side." Does she understand what I am asking? Or is she just repeating it? We were walking back and forth on the deck yesterday and I said "let's go inside before it starts to rain" and she keeps walking and says "go side befo sta rain."

And the singing is remarkable. My mom discovered a few months ago that M will actually attempt to mimic the notes my mom sings (only a couple at a time, but we were still impressed).

Not only is it words and sounds, she likes to mimic what she sees other things do too. We were at PetCo yesterday and she was wildly amused by the hideous ferrets that were on display. At her height she was standing eye to eye with the vermin, but she could not stop laughing hysterically because every time he shook his head, she shook her head. When he lifted his paw (do they have paws? claws? foot?) she would lift her hand.

When my dog barks at home, M goes "woof! woof!"

I am assuming this is the way that children learn how to speak and understand words, right? I have never done this before, so I am assuming this is the beginning of her learning how to talk on her own...that all of this repetition will become something someday, no?

The funny thing about all this is that I have realized that I tend to say some words a lot more than others. One of her favorite things to say now is "coo" because apparently I say "cool" about everything. She has also started saying "oh ka" which I realized was copying me saying "oh crap."

The day I hear her say "mama fugga" we are really in trouble.