Lost in Translation

If we count up all of the words we've heard Oliver say, I think we're somewhere around 20. But there are a lonely few that have actually stuck around. It's as if he's all, "okay, I've said it, you're happy, so I'm done with that word."

Michael glowed for weeks when Oliver went around saying "Dada." Now all day long it's "Mmmma, ma. Mama. Mama. Mmmma, Mmma, Ma. Mama." So yeah, take that, Dada.

But what trumps us both is "tickle, tickle." Yes, that's right, Oliver is much more apt to say "tickle, tickle," with appropriate action to demostrate the verbage, than Mama or Dada. That's nice. He's signing some, too, so let's hope "diaper" doesn't trump us as well.

Most of you know that Michael and I are not shy people. We talk a lot. Okay, I talk a lot. The point is, we kind of thought our kid would be chatty early. By now, we expected to be discussing front page news with him at the dinner table. Don't get me wrong, the kid talks, we just don't know what language it's in. The first few months of verbage had us convinced that he was speaking Hebrew. I'm confident that his first real word was "Mazel Tov." In fact, when he was 11 months old, we were browsing in a South Minneapolis toy store, when I smiled listening to my little boy jibber-jabber. I looked up, though, to find two children with dark curly hair wearing yamakas.

Or maybe he's speaking Russian. After all, for months, he said in a sweet, questioning voice, "Da? Da?" when pointing to a person, a cat, his sippy, a nuk, the wall, the air. Perhaps he was just confirming that it was all there. "My feet are attached to my ankels, yes? That's a wall, yes? You're going to feed me that food, yes?" Da, darling.

To encourage him in learning our first language (after all, we may not understand anything about him from about years 14-19, so why start early?), we say the name for everything he points to. We have full-out conversations with him. We explain everything we're doing. We try to connect the world around him with their proper labels.

Ollie knows where his eyes are, his nose, his ears, his toes, his hair, his tummy, and my favorite, his tongue. So he'll do quite well in life if he's hired as a consultant for creating the next line of Mr Potato Heads.

Our sweet kid is catching on. I was reading a book to him the other day when I turned to a page with a picture of bees on it.

"Oliver! These are bees. Can you say 'bees'? Can you say it? 'Bees.' 'Bees.' Can you say that?"

Ollie took his chubbly little hand and moved it around in a sloppy circle on his tummy. He was making the sign for "please."

And yesterday, he pointed up at the TV, which showed the opening scene of "Harry Potter."

"That's Harry Potter," I said. "Ha-rry. Can you say, 'Harry?'"

He cautiously lifted a hand and selected a few strands...of hair.

I am no longer in a rush to have him speaking perfect English. The kid is simply perfect just as he is.