Out of the Mouths of Babes
One of my favourite things about toddlerhood is watching the eolution of language. From hilarious mispronunciations to unique truns of phrase, language acquisition in children is an insight into their personalities, and the ways in which they process the world around them.
Both of The Ladies talked early–at about 5 months. And both of them said “‘Mama” as their first word. When Sabrina did it, I dismissed it as meaningless baby babble until other people pointed out that she only made that particular noise while looking at me. When Regan followed her sister’s lead, I wasn’t surprised; I just figured it was par for the course.
Once Sabrina mastered her voice box, there was no holding her back. She talked constantly (and still does). At first I wondered if her words had any real meaning; when I heard her talking in her sleep it seemed obvious to me that she was well on her way to figuring the whole language thing out. While my Diva Girl has always had a strong vocabulary (one of the side effects of being the only child of a highly educated single mother), there are a couple linguistic gems that I will always treasure from the time when she was first learning to express her understanding of the world.
“Circle money.” When Bree was a bout two and a half, she was telling a story that involved coins. Although she’d seen coins, and was aware that they were a form of currency, she didn’t know what they were called. So, based on the information at hand, she made an educated guess.
“The Chimney Guy.” Until she was about 4, Sabrina was far more interested in Frosty the Snowman than Santa Claus. The big guy in the red suit clearly didn’t make much of an impact on her, since she for years, she couldn’t remember his name.
“Pollimop.” Sabrina has always had very good pronunciation, but for some reason, she just couldn’t master the word “Lollipop.” Quite possibly because I so loved hearing her say “pollimop” that I never bothered to correct her.
When Regan began speaking, I just took it for granted that she would be a talker like her sister. She said the same word at pretty much the same age, so that didn’t seem like too unlikely an expectation. And when she was saying “Spongebob” shortly before her first birthday, it seemed pretty much a given. Then she got a debulking surgery for her first birthday and stopped speaking altogether.
She’d always been a reserved baby, and tended to save her verbal exchanges for Mummy, but by the time we left the hospital she wouldn’t even talk to me. For months she was utterly silent. Not a word, not even a sound. Although I understood why she wasn’t speaking, I’ll confess that her silence was disconcerting. Two way communication, particularly verbal communication, is one of the key ways that we can judge that our children are developing on track; that the world is a comprehensible place for them and one that they are capable of processing and exploring in meaningful ways. I have one friend whose son is Autistic and another whose little boy has just been diagnosed with severe Apraxia; I needed Regan to speak to be assured that she really was ok.
I am a very lucky mother, because in addition to the miracle that was Regan’s tumour, I was also, after much patient waiting, given the gift of her speech. And what a gift it is! Clearly I need not have worried about her verbal skills; at not quite two and a half Zen Baby speaks in complex sentences. She doesn’t chatter constantly like her sister, but she can certainly keep up her end of the conversation. And like most toddlers, she’s putting her personal twist on the language. A particular quirk of hers is her use of nouns as adjectives:
In the Zen Baby lexicon, “Barbie” means anything that is pretty. Or wearing a dress. “Chocolate” describes more of an experience than a flavour for Zen Baby. Chocolate is ” chocolate,” but so are strawberries and oatmeal cookies.
Sometimes I want them to just. stop. talking. But then, Regan asks me for “oh yeah juice” (Kool Aid) or a “boo boo stick” (band aid) and I just can’t wait to hear what they’ll say next.