my mother was a very strait-laced vermonter but when she was with this one friend her laces loosened up--a lot! she had 6 month old josh in the car and she and pru were chattering and when they came into the house their faces were red and they could hardly stop laughing to breathe. my mom said josh had said " you eat sh-t". i was appalled. I said he couldn't have because he had never heard such a thing in his life! well, they swore up and down that he had said it, they both had hear it, and they repeated it several times in front of this sweet innocent happy little baby! that afternoon my friend deb came over and we went to the store and took josh with us. i told her the awful story. and out of the back seat pipes this tiny voice, " you eat sh-t." i nearly ran off the road!!! needless to say we cracked up. he wasn't saying the meaning of the words just the sounds, and he was only repeating them because he got a positive response, but man, i was so shocked! and so was my mom! well, all of us! kids are so innocent and try out any sounds they can! years later we were visiting my parents and i knew i had a much less strict language 'law' than my mom's and i had warned the kids to watch their words around grandma and be polite. one of mom's favorite things was giving baths, so she had started the boys in the tub. they were 4 and 6, and she came stomping downstairs to where i was. well, she said, the language on those two ! (oh, no, they blew it) what did they say, i asked. well, she said, let's just say they don't know the word 'urinate'. (now, that! was a pretty safe bet!! they had said 'pee'). i explained to her that in our house, and our area of texas, pee was considered perfectly polite within our social class. it was so much better than a hundred other things they could have said it was all i could do to keep from laughing.
i do believe josh's first words were ickey owie, which meant mickey mouse. (other that the usual dada, mama etc)