Friday, December 12, 2008

Mama, I hon-ghee

Sometime in the last couple of weeks, a revolution has taken place in Boo's head, and the gentleman in the areas of Broca and Wernicke have come out of their developmental stupor and started to play well with other neurons.


In other words, now she is talking. Really talking. Not always intelligably, but the Mommy-translator is usually up to par and I can figure out what she's trying to say most of the time. When I can't, she says "No" very definitively, and repeats the word with strong vocal emphasis. Sometimes that helps, sometimes not.

As someone who spent several years of post-graduate life learning about language and cognition and other such crap stuff, it's fascinating to me to observe language development in my kids. Devil was never a big babbler - she listened and watched and finally decided that she was going to talk. Boo, on the other hand, very happily treats us to long involved monologues that are completely uncomprehensible to the rest of us, except for occasional words. In the last couple of weeks, she's started in with sentences (such as the title of this post, which is usually pronounced in the car on the way home in the evening, followed by a long sigh). And questions. And "I did it!" uttered with absolute glee when she does something spectactular, like getting off the couch or picking up a toy off the floor or finding her stuffed animal.

It is a joy to watch her figuring out how to interact with her world. You can almost hear the synapses being made. Ping! There goes another one.

Hopefully I'll have some fibery blogging next week. My Christmas knitting plans have been thrown somewhat up in the air by the appearance of Winter Knitty and my sudden absolutely life-threatening need to make 42 pairs of these.

No comments: