What's in a name?

Eli's vocabulary is expanding rapidly now. He surprises us all the time with words we didn't even know he knew! One of my favorites is when he talks about Grammy's german shepherd and says, "Big dog...big dog walkin'." It's also very cute the way he rolls his whole mouth around the word uncle. He seems to say it with an 'o' instead of an 'u'.

The silliest thing he says are his and Leah's names. They always come out the same way, but without this post you wouldn't have any idea what he was saying. He sat in the living room and said the first and middle name of his cousin, but when you ask him to say 'Eli', he says 'Audi'. Even when you slow it down and ask him to say 'E' he will say it correctly, then you ask him to say 'li' and he says 'Audi'. Eeeeeee....audi is how it comes out. Every time. It is so weird and cute. When you ask him to say Leah, and if he doesn't insist on saying Baby as her name, he will say Waudi. I just don't get it. Even when he is absent-mindedly repeating what he hears, if his name is in it, he'll say Audi not Eli.