"Shoes"

Annalee has many favorite words, and many of them rhyme with "shoes" (which is currently her very favorite word). When she says it, which is often (and not infrequently late at night), she means something along the lines of "Put my shoes on, please, then yours, and then get me out of the confines of this house and into the wider world. Now, please, or slightly sooner."

Before "shoes" the favorite word was "juice," which, although not a perfect rhyme in the strict academic sense, was made one by inserting the barest zee into the word at just the right place. For some time juice referred to any fluid allowed for baby's consumption. She determined at an early juncture that if mommy or daddy was hesitant in fetching a sippy cup full of the sacred beverage, and waited as long as, say, nine seconds before producing it, then repeating the order, "juice; juice; juice," was uniquely successful -- and satisfying.

Other words that rhyme (or almost) and are said a lot around these parts: "moo," "poopoo," and Boo (the name of her dog). The "oo" sound, it turns out, permits my beloved to condense a fair part of her being into a single utterance, and she is right to say it all day.