Use Your Words

As each child reaches milestones and each new child reaches the same milestone, I enjoy comparing and reminiscing about the previous child’s progress. It’s fun to see similarities. For instance, all three have gone through the Cheerio stage (thus we’ve gone through the crunchy-floor stage, three times). All three have gone through the waking up in the morning and calling my name over and over and over and over until I pull them out of bed. They all went through the stage where they were more interested in Daddy than Mommy. (I’m not even going to comment on how that is not my favorite stage ;))

But there is one stage that is similar but distinctly different in an interesting sort of way. It’s the terminology stage. Saylah when she started to sign and speak, she would use the sign language for “milk” to mean, “I want” no matter what it was that she wanted. Then as she began to speak, she’d use real words for real things. A cow was a cow. A horse, a horse. Dad was dad and Mom was mom. You get the picture.

Audrey on the other hand, we had our light bulb moment when we realized that at around 18 months Audrey preferred to call things by the sound they made rather than its actual name. In other words, a cow was always called a “moo,” a horse, “neigh” and milk was called “gulp.”

I thought I had it all figured out. Apparently, babies either call something by what it actually is, or they call it by what sound it makes. Isaac enlightened me to yet another option. My third has decided to call things by general terms. In other words, both sisters are called “Audrey.” I’ve heard him say Saylah from time to time, but typically speaking, he calls them both Audrey. You could chalk this up to either Audrey is easier to say or that they both look alike so he gets them confused ..  and move on … until you really study his “conversation” skills.

When he wants something he likes, he calls it a “cookie.” Currently the Garmin GPS that I let him play with in the car is called a cookie. If he doesn’t like something or want something, he will often express his distaste by saying “owwie, owwie” whether it hurts or not. And my all time personal fave – he calls me “Dah.” Yep, that’s right, I capitalized it. He calls Ben “daddy” and I’ve heard him say “moma” before, but typically when he wants to get my attention he calls me “Dah.” After much contemplation and amusement, we decided that “Dah” probably means “that.” And to add to the joy of being a “that,” I am honored to share that title with my Mom. I'm certainly thrilled that he holds her in such high regard. But I do think I should get some sort of distinction ... come on buddy, I birthed you! ;) Well – at least I’m in good company! We are two “thats” that are definitely important to his life.

I’m not at all sure what this knowledge indicates about his personality. I can say that Saylah is very precise which lands well with her using the right words during her baby conversations. As mentioned in an earlier post, Audrey does enjoy roaming the house making animal sounds … or really any type of sound she can come up with sometimes. So if that’s to allude to any foreshadowing … I’d suppose Isaac will become a child who goes with the flow, really not dealing too much with the minutia of details … you know “whatever.”  J