Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Vocabulary Explosion!

Of course, he waited until I was gone all the time to start learning words.
In the last two weeks Dylan has gone from mostly incoherent babbling peppered with words and phrases like "awww man" "Dora Dora Boots" "I want soda" and "cookie" to being intelligible almost 50 percent of the time.
Now he talks and it's not only ME that can understand him!
Last weekend, while I was being assailed by angry tire customers, Bob taught Dylan to say the numbers 1 through 10. You say "One!" he says "twooooooooo, teeeeeeeee!"
It's really quite cute and when they showed off their trick Sunday night, I cried. Tears of joy! Tears of joy!
I'm so glad that he's not going to stay a crazy babbler forever. I was really worried that the language sector of his brain was never going to kick in properly.
His sister has been doing all his talking for him.
"Dylan wants a cookie. Dylan does not want to go to bed. Dylan wants ME to draw him a picture and eat a cookie. Dylan wants to watch Garfield Halloween. Again."

The other kid, as you may have been able to discern, talks WAAAAY too much. She's 3 going on 13. I asked her to go get me a little towel to wipe Dylan's face and this was her reply.

"Uhhhhhhhhh, in a minute, I'm really busy doing something right now."

She was laying on the couch picking at her toes.
Verrrrry important, yes, but definitely postponable.

Of course, that is when she even deigns to answer me when I am talking to her. More often than not she just keeps puttering around with her random errands (line up spoons on counter, check! Put all doll babies to bed, naked of course, on the couch? Check!) and doesn't even acknowledge that I have spoken to her.
That is MADDENING!

Naturally, this same child will throw a fit of epic proportions if you do not drop everything you are doing to immediately listen to her recount the myriad twists and turns of the very interesting plot of the latest episode of Spongebob...

"And then Gary said 'Meow' and then Patrick was hungry and then Sandy was....MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!! Listen to me RIGHT NOW!!!! And then Spongebob was crazy. And then Mr. Crabs was cheap. And then Squidward was mad....MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! Look at me RIGHT NOW!!!"

But I'll tell you, if the words coming out of your mouth aren't "Let's have chocolate pudding and skittles for breakfast and wash it down with root beer floats!" she will just tune you out and go on with her day.
And God help you if you try to say "Why don't you go clean your room?"
Unless you like screaming, crying, kicking fits. Then you'll be fine.

8 comments:

Anne Marie said...

Can I tell you that your daughter is HILARIOUS! I love the "picking of the toes- too busy to help" story! I know at the time, it was probably not funny, and you would have liked a helping hand- but, that made me laugh! Kids are too funny.

Jessica said...

Oh yeah, she's so funny!!!!
Just now I asked her to come over to me and she said:
"I'm doing some work right now!"

I get up to see what she is doing, and she's laying on the floor in the family room, feet up on the entertainment center, watching some cartoon.
Work.
Right.

Chris said...

This sounds so strangely familiar...

eaf said...

Actually, I am the introvert in our house, so Athena will say something inane to me like, "pink and purple are pretty and this is round" and I will simply continue to do stupid things like cook dinner, or pick up toys or pay bills (never anything IMPORTANT like picking at my toes)... but I won't necessarily say anything to her. (I mean, really... how does one respond to that?)

Then she screams "PINK AND PURPLE ARE PRETTY AND THIS IS ROUND, MOMMY!!" and I say, "Yes, that's true, Athena" and she says, "You didn't TALK to me..."

She wears me out...

Jessica said...

Chris and Elizabeth, we are living in very similar homes I think.
Our boy is filled with energy, it's like someone pulled a string and then we just watch him spin around like a top through the house, wreaking havoc and causing chaos. Like a tornado.
Elizabeth channels her energy into an endless stream of babble.
Even when she was sick with a sore throat recently she didn't stop talking.
"Why am I talking funny? What happened to my talk? This is not my normal talk! This tea is making my sicky-ness go away, but my talk is still funny. Where is my regular talk?"
etc etc.

eaf said...

I haven't been complaining about Marcus' lack of speech because I just think of TWO children blathering about nothing and my head starts to tremble and smoke. I say to Marcus, "Use your words," and then I think... no... no... just throw your plate. That will be less annoying I think.

Chris said...

Well, imagine someone who is like a top spinning once you pull the string AND babbles incoherently all the time and you have Athena.

I can't imagine where she gets the energy.

Jessica said...

I honestly don't know WHERE kids get their energy...
Appendix maybe?