homonyms and antonyms

like all native speakers of the english language, ava has effortlessly learned that "feet" is the plural of "foot", and many other ridiculous twists of our language too. she's picking up funny expressions left and right ("those forks are rubbish!"), including some with her own unique twist ("oopsie spaghettio!"). ocassionally she gets things a little wrong ("bring my blue blanket to keep me cold"), but one thing i've never caught her at, is any seeming acknowledgement or confusion surrounding the many unfortunate homonyms in the english language.

some of them are even among her favorite words. "two" has been her favorite number even before it was also her age. and phrases like "ducky come too" have been around for ages as well. she never seems trouble by "come here mommy" versus "i hear a noise". her growing grasp of the english language seemd so devoid of homonym issues that i'd concluded that a child's learning of a new word must be inherently context based.

but then today, i finally heard her get mixed up. we were discussing which side of the garage to park the bike on.

ava: we park the bike on this side mommy?
cailin: yup
ava: that side is harder mommy?
cailin: yup, it's harder to get you loaded up on that side
ava: this side is softer mommy?

nice that in demonstrating her confusion over homonyms, she also demonstrated her grasp of antonyms!