Baby Talk

 Since Covid I’ve been in a bit of a funk. I mean really=I didn’t die! I should be grateful, but instead have focused on the time spent in isolation and the plans I had to give up. I had to cancel a bike trip that doesn’t seem to be able to be rescheduled.

On the human front: What seems to interest me lately is watching the baby, my grandson, grow and change. It is dynamic. Everyday there is something new. This element alone keeps me engaged. I can’t wait to see what is new.

What is new?! Baby talk. Communication. He is trying to tell us something. It’s in there, just trying to get out. I can tell he is storing up a lexicon of words that will one day burst forth. Right now he is mimicking or “approximating” as a child development expert friend I have said. Either way, he is meeting milestone of verbal development. However slowly, or so it seems.

There are a few things he is successfully able to communicate. One is a sign language sign for more, which has also expanded to please or give to me or this is what I want. I arrived one morning to babysit and both parents were ready to go out the door. In fact all three were crowded at the door, Dad’s hand on the knob, Mom right behind him—and there was Jack making the MORE sign, as if he had to get going also. He wanted to go outside.

Then later that same day we went to the park and when we arrived and stood in front of the swings he said: Wow. Now to be honest this wasn’t at all anything new or awesome, but old hat. Yet he was communicating the wonder of being here in this moment and that the experience of flying through the air in a swing was what he wanted. Wow. He seems to emote the word when he says it, as if wrapped up in the small word is a special world.

I know there is more, MORE, to come.