"Foke Tak"

Playing trains on the floor of Elijah's bedroom the other day, he looks up and says to me something which was not recognizable as English (or Spanish... or any other human language I know). After asking him to repeat himself several times I decide he really does mean what he says since he says it exactly the same every time.

It sounded something like this, "Za-Za pood da foke tak uponit taine."

I will grant to you that sometimes I am the only person on the planet who can interpret what he says. Even Manny cannot differentiate between the words "milk" and "make", for example. Mostly I rely upon context (context is always key, after all), tone of voice, gestures, and my prior knowledge of his pronunciation of certain sounds.

This is what I know: He says "dampa" to mean "grandpa".
So, dam = grand.

Get it?

But even using all of the mad Mom skills in my arsenal I could not figure out what, "Za-Za pood da foke tak uponit taine" meant. Until... later that day we were playing a train puzzle and all the pieces fit together... so to speak. (That was funny right there.)

He picks up each piece and talks about what it is. "Dis is da taboose". (Meaning: This is the caboose."

Dis is da coal car.
Dis is da tanker car.
Dis is da hopper car.
Dis is da engine. Engines hab coal in em. Coal makes em go. And foke comes out of da foke tak.

What? You mean 'smoke stack'? Is that what you were saying?

Yeah! Foke tak. Foke looks like clouds. Foke tak!! Foke comes out of engines.

So, in other words "Za-Za pood da foke tak uponit taine" translates roughly to "Elijah put the smoke stack up on the train".