Blzz@spit, etc.
Our daughter is now talking.....sort of.
According to a study I read on language delays for Chinese adoptees who come to the States at 11 months of age, they are an average of 18 months behind other children until they catch up around 3 years of age (try to figure out those mathematics). It doesn't seem to be the case with Sweetpea because at 18 months, besides her ten or so words (mama, dada, Daisy, gampa, gamma, duck, up, down, out, bye, and now....'chicken' which is enunciated quite clearly while performing the chicken dance) she has begun babbling in earnest and is sincerely conversing with everyone and anything, including herself.
Babbling is a fascinating stage with kids - they have more vocal tricks than we adults could ever manage, including clicks, lip bursts, a variety of spitting sounds and tongue gymnastics of all sorts that result in a perfectly beautiful language performed with equally graceful facial expressions and hand gestures. She will babble as she walks purposefully down the street, then stop, pick up something in absolute, concentrating silence, and then, with a turn toward me, explain in lengthy detail what the object is.....baazzspli#+mffft, ending with a very wet raspberry. To which I nod in agreement and then we move on, happy companions on our outing down Mayberry Street.
I have a feeling talking is going to be very important to Sweetpea because she's doing so much of it now. And I also know this because the babbling was preceeded by a several days of psychic darkness - she was clearly frustrated because some part of her brain had matured before some other part and she was like a comatose victim who could hear conversations but try as she might, could not form a sound in response. In this state of angst she would gesture madly, roll her eyes, point and grunt, shake her head forcefully, and then when all else failed, drop to the floor like a rag doll and roll around kicking and screaming. Not very pleasant for Mummy.
Then one day it happened. Author Harvey Karp, M.D. says in his book, "The Happiest Toddler on the Block" that babies have to go through the equivalent of five million years of evolution by the time they reach the age of four. Whew! That's a lot of work. So Sweetpea was definitely in the throes of one of those evolutionary leaps when one day without any warning she stood rooted to the spot in the living room and suddenly began to spout what sounded like pig Latin. She even looked around as if to figure out where the sound had come from. The babbling had begun, and with each passing day the sounds became more sophisticated, the 'sentences' more lengthy. A peaceful look came over her, beautific almost. She experimented with everything, incorporating mimicked sounds she heard throughout the day like 'un, do, tee' with her own creations, which undoubtedly sound perfectly intelligible and uber-smart.
These days when she starts up a particulary gymnastic sequence, we laugh and then, awed by her efforts, we sit back and listen.
And stare.
It has come to our attention that our Sweetpea will one day, one moment, actually verbalize complete ideas within a grammatically correct sentence and break out of the baby prison to become one of us. It is an idea that is so fantastical, so bizarre we are not quite sure what to make of it. I mean, we are used to the Sweetpea of the hand gestures and the simple, pure, and clear emotions. Happy, sad, mad, delighted, sly, mischevious, deeply loving. Mix these up with the complexities of who this new person is and the possibilities are as endless as they are mysterious.
You know, she might even get better at this whole life thing than us. Frankly, the whole idea leaves me speechless.
According to a study I read on language delays for Chinese adoptees who come to the States at 11 months of age, they are an average of 18 months behind other children until they catch up around 3 years of age (try to figure out those mathematics). It doesn't seem to be the case with Sweetpea because at 18 months, besides her ten or so words (mama, dada, Daisy, gampa, gamma, duck, up, down, out, bye, and now....'chicken' which is enunciated quite clearly while performing the chicken dance) she has begun babbling in earnest and is sincerely conversing with everyone and anything, including herself.
Babbling is a fascinating stage with kids - they have more vocal tricks than we adults could ever manage, including clicks, lip bursts, a variety of spitting sounds and tongue gymnastics of all sorts that result in a perfectly beautiful language performed with equally graceful facial expressions and hand gestures. She will babble as she walks purposefully down the street, then stop, pick up something in absolute, concentrating silence, and then, with a turn toward me, explain in lengthy detail what the object is.....baazzspli#+mffft, ending with a very wet raspberry. To which I nod in agreement and then we move on, happy companions on our outing down Mayberry Street.
I have a feeling talking is going to be very important to Sweetpea because she's doing so much of it now. And I also know this because the babbling was preceeded by a several days of psychic darkness - she was clearly frustrated because some part of her brain had matured before some other part and she was like a comatose victim who could hear conversations but try as she might, could not form a sound in response. In this state of angst she would gesture madly, roll her eyes, point and grunt, shake her head forcefully, and then when all else failed, drop to the floor like a rag doll and roll around kicking and screaming. Not very pleasant for Mummy.
Then one day it happened. Author Harvey Karp, M.D. says in his book, "The Happiest Toddler on the Block" that babies have to go through the equivalent of five million years of evolution by the time they reach the age of four. Whew! That's a lot of work. So Sweetpea was definitely in the throes of one of those evolutionary leaps when one day without any warning she stood rooted to the spot in the living room and suddenly began to spout what sounded like pig Latin. She even looked around as if to figure out where the sound had come from. The babbling had begun, and with each passing day the sounds became more sophisticated, the 'sentences' more lengthy. A peaceful look came over her, beautific almost. She experimented with everything, incorporating mimicked sounds she heard throughout the day like 'un, do, tee' with her own creations, which undoubtedly sound perfectly intelligible and uber-smart.
These days when she starts up a particulary gymnastic sequence, we laugh and then, awed by her efforts, we sit back and listen.
And stare.
It has come to our attention that our Sweetpea will one day, one moment, actually verbalize complete ideas within a grammatically correct sentence and break out of the baby prison to become one of us. It is an idea that is so fantastical, so bizarre we are not quite sure what to make of it. I mean, we are used to the Sweetpea of the hand gestures and the simple, pure, and clear emotions. Happy, sad, mad, delighted, sly, mischevious, deeply loving. Mix these up with the complexities of who this new person is and the possibilities are as endless as they are mysterious.
You know, she might even get better at this whole life thing than us. Frankly, the whole idea leaves me speechless.
posted by vallie at 9:51 AM
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