The Growing Chatter...

I've been musing on this one & wanted to share it for the greater ponderings, I suppose. Had I never had a child, I would never have truly appreciated the ABSOLUTE miracle of language acquisition. It's one thing to read it in a textbook (and I have). It's an absolute OTHER thing to witness it, first-hand, and fathom the minutia of changes that have to occur for all the pieces to fall into place when they're supposed to. I'm telling you ~ there aren't words to aptly describe it, but I delight in it each day as I'm chatting with B.

His current milestone is the inclusion of linking/helping/"being" verbs, call them what you may. All of a sudden, within the past week (or two?), I hear: "My diaper is NOT wet." "I am NOT tired yet." "B would like a fruit snack PLEASE." "ARE YOU TIRED? Need to go to beddie?" over the monitor as he wakes up: "MOMMA, where AAAAAAAARRRRREEEEE YOUUUUUU?" "Mom, are you making DINNER? What ARE you making for dinner???" Unreal.

What kicked me also was when the questions started, so did the little vocal lilt. As a fluent speaker, I'm never cognizantly aware of raising my voice at the punctuation mark that denotes I'm asking a question; I just do. Furthermore, raising your voice isn't something that we explicitly TEACH when we're teaching our kids to talk; well, I didn't! :) Yet, he has this little toddler lilt, almost sing-songy, and it's unmistakeably going to be a question when it pops out of his mouth. UNBELIEVABLE.

Just to WATCH how language unfolds is a joy & a miracle. Yes, I'm an education/psychology nerd @ heart, I can't help that it fascinates me, but how can it NOT?!

Ha ~ his next language step is a funny one. He's got personal pronouns. He just can't yet associate them gender-appropriately. :) Today at the park, he repeatedly talked about his little friend, M, who he will tell you as a girl, and said: "Momma, his shirt is pretty." Explaining that one as the six-yr old girl pushed his swing was a different matter, but it'll all come soon enough!