From the Mouths of Babes
I am not a mommy blogger. I’ve been clear on that ever since I started this blog. I’m a mom. I read and enjoy blogs about children and parenting, and have lots of respect for those who choose this as a focus for their writing. Motherhood is a big part of my identity. But it is also a very visible, noisy, demanding part, and I find myself drawn to writing about elements of myself that do not reach the surface as often in daily life and conversation.
All of which is a big preamble to tell you that I am about to write a post about my daughter.
She will turn two this winter. Like all parents, I am completely smitten. I am constantly amazed and amused by her antics and accomplishments. But the most magical part for me is her language development. Since her birth I have felt like we were in one of those sappy movies where the characters, although besotted with each other, speak different languages. We developed rudimentary ways to communicate. (The first time she pointed to the cupboard, said “ca-ker” and made the sign for “please” I felt like I had made contact with Mars.) It worked. We got by. But now that we speak a common tongue, our relationship has progressed to a whole new level.
Words are important to me, so I guess that this should come as no surprise, but I am completely blown away by watching this little person learn to speak. I’m talking about open-mouth, wide-eyed wonder here. The kind you associate with childhood Christmas mornings, or disturbing astronomical phenomena, or religious experiences. I know that the process of acquiring language is mundane and universal, but I cannot shake the feeling that there is something miraculous about it.
Being a word geek, I am fascinated by the pure mechanics of it—watching when verbs started to show up, and prepositions, and when she graduated from two-word sentences to three. I’m intrigued by the things that are confusing (pronouns) or physically difficult (the ‘L’ sound). I love that vocabulary grows exponentially—she acquires new words too fast now for me to even keep track. And I love what her language tells me about her mind. When she busts out a classic like “No, this MINE polar bear,” I think about all the concepts that went into forming that little sentence and I stand amazed.
Here are three things I love about being able to converse with this daughter of mine:
1. Practicality–It is indisputably useful to be able to ask her what she wants to eat for breakfast, or where she put her shoes, or which part got hurt when she fell down, and expect to receive an answer.
2. Play–Words have opened up whole new avenues for amusement. We take turns singing songs now, and while away the hours consuming endless combinations of pretend cake and coffee. She is often intentionally silly. Asked what her toes (which were in her mouth) tasted like, she giggled and replied, “Bananas!”
3. Politeness–It’s funny how hardwired we are to respond to polite verbal cues. Some of her more civilized expressions are surely rote—“Salud!” for a sneeze or “Thank you, Mommy!” for more snacks—but they evoke genuine gratitude all the same, and smooth out the edges if we’re having a hard day. And some of them express things that I don’t actually need to be told—things that we covered way back in our non-verbal days. But “Love you, Mommy,” still gets me every time.