“Hold You”

When Penny and Bea were very small—walking but not really expressing themselves well with words yet—they would walk over and ask to be held by reaching their arms up and squeaking. Or grunting. Whimpering? I don’t know. Whatever you’d call that sound that little kids make when they want something. Listen to the narration to hear it.

When they did this, I would ask “you want me to hold you?” and then pick them up and give them the comfort they were looking for. Sarah must have said something similar, too, and we must have been pretty consistent in the phrasing, because eventually they would come up to us, reach their arms out, and say “hold you!” meaning “please, pick me up and hold me.” It was one of the earliest, clearest phrases they both used.

There some variations, of course. “Huggah” was common, especially before they started using more than one word at a time. When Penny was learning to walk, she would say “Wah wah wah wah wah” to get you to hold her hand and walk around with her. But “hold you” was the Homo sapiens to the other phrases’ Homo neanderthalensis.

Imagine these two little goblins coming up and asking to be held.

I tried to find a video where they actually said “hold you” but couldn’t so use your imagination.

Even now, as grown, adult women approaching their fifth birthday, they still say “hold you” to indicate that they need to be picked up and held. If they want a hug, it’s “huggies” which is a totally different request than “hold you”. Feeling sad after some altercation with their sister? Hold you. Don’t want to walk up the stairs for bath? Hold you. Just need a damn bit of human comfort for pretty much any reason? Hold you.

Even as they were struggling with diction, “hold you” was always clear and well pronounced. Always understandable. They really needed to be held. When the request was critical, it became an emphatic “Hold you hold you hold you hold you!” There’s no denying that.

Mina, at the ripe old age of two and a half, has spent her whole life hearing her older sisters—who she adores and strives to model in everything—say “hold you”. But because main exposure wasn’t the primary source of the phrase, me and Sarah, her interpretation of the words, of the sounds of the words, is a little bit corrupted. A bad VHS copy of something you rented at Hollywood Video.

So, instead of “hold you” she says “hohnyoo” or “holnyoo”. It means exactly the same thing and is used in exactly the same way, but it’s a funny interpretation of what Penny and Bea say. A strong need isn’t “hold you hold you hold you,” it’s “hohnyoo hohnyoo hohnyoo.” Again, if you want to hear it, listen to the narration at the top of this post.

One day, she’ll be old enough to understand that they’re saying two words: hold and you. Then she’ll probably stop saying “hohnyoo” and start saying “hold you”. One day, they’ll all stop saying it completely which will be a sad day we won’t recognize until much later. For now, whether it’s a “hold you” or a “hohnyoo”, I pick the child up.