Wordsmithing

Abe's hit that stage where he's starting to use more complex sentences and phrases. It might be one of my personal favorite stages in a child's life. Anna and Abe may not look alike, but they follow a similar verbal pattern.

If something can be said in five words, they'd prefer to use 200 words instead. There are descriptions, locations, arm movements and references to stories heard at friends' houses. When they start telling you something, you might as well pull up a chair. You'll be there awhile.

And Abe talks non-stop. He wakes up yelling "Mama, Dada, get me down... I need milk... can you hear me??? I see my trains..." And he just never stops.

Now he has started throwing in the words "actually" and "probably" randomly. His low deep voice makes it all the more humorous when he lets out a deep belly laugh and then turns to me and says, "yah, that probably funny, mama."

Yeah, it probably is. Actually, it definitely is. Wait, let me rephrase that. It ACKUALLY is. That's how Abe would say it.

Abe, do you have a juice cup? "yah, I ackually do have one, mama."

And then when you ask him a question and he doesn't hear you or doesn't quite understand you, he will say in his megaphone-like voice "WHAT YOU SAID??" I said we're going to drop off the library books, Abe.... "WHAT YOU SAID???"

And his obsession with Bob the Builder now means that there is a blurry line between conversation and just recital of episode plots. "You take me to da library and then we go get snack but dats what Lofty say because Bob want to take Farmer Pickle's eggs."

Pardon? What you said, Abe? Didn't quite catch that.

But that's okay because he has already moved on to his next topic. Something sparkly has caught his eye and he's off in another conversational direction. It's fun. And often funny. Between the two of them we have maybe five, ten seconds of silence in a day. But I still love it. I wouldn't trade these days for anything because I'm seeing the growth of a human brain. The attempts to reason with me, negotiate, explain. It's ACKUALLY pretty fascinating.