My little girl has a new favorite word: Booty.

Yes, she’s saying it in reference to her derriere. And yes, when she says it, she wiggles her tiny behind like a cat about to pounce. For most of the day today, she said the word roughly 200 times an hour. The house has sounded like that crazy scene in the 1999 film, “Being John Malkovich,” when all of the John Malkovich characters say nothing but “Malkovich.”

Powergirl and I totally brought the whole “booty” thing on ourselves. L loves to dance, and when she does, she twists her little body in all sorts of adorable ways. To encourage her, we say things like, “Shake your booty, L!” and “Go booty, go booty, go booty.”

Because the word, “booty,” is really (easy and) fun to say, L has picked it up and made it her own. Now she’s obsessed.

As I type this, the baby is saying “Booty” to her nine-year-old cousin, who called the house specifically to hear L’s newest word. Five minutes before that, as Powergirl and I were changing L’s diaper, she must have said it 70 times.

The best part of the Booty craze is that it simply never gets old. I just hope she’s still saying it after she learns other words, too.