SOLSC 2022 #8 - On language

 

It is March 2022 and time for the

 15th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge  

Every single day, for all thirty-one days of March,

writers will share stories.

Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for creating this supportive community 

of teacher-writers!

I am musing about language development today...

Poppa asked Bird - "Do you want to go outside?" and Bird quickly toddled to the door. "First, let's get your socks and shoes...and your jacket," Poppa added. One by one, with coaching, Bird collected her clothes for going outdoors. Pretty impressive for a 15-month old! When she was dressed for the outside, she stood at the door and insisted 'baba!' (bubbles). Wow! We had been outside earlier in the morning, using wands and blowing bubbles; she had remembered and hoped to do so again. 

Listen to this - she is now directing us, rather than simply echoing or following our lead!

For much of her infancy, Bird was very quiet. I made the (quite false) assumption that this quieter manner was her personality. I think for months all I could really hear was her talkative big sister Frog (now 3 1/2 years old). As it turned out, as soon as Bird began toddling/walking, she erupted with sounds. She has become one noisy little friend - busy, curious, and
squawking 
grunting 
chortling
squealing 
chattering 
a steady stream of gobbledygook. 
She has become loud and chatty, and it is really funny. 

There are lots of nonsense words. She has far fewer 'real' words than Frog did at this age (and, yes, I know, I shouldn't be comparing). The pediatrician told her parents that this is typical of a second child, especially if the older sibling is chattering, explaining, and basically doing all the talking for them. It is clear that Bird has good comprehension of our words, as evidenced by the running around she did for Poppa before going outside. 

Here are some of the words I hear from her frequently - her favorite 'wants':

craka (cracker)

rabi (raspberry)

baNA (banana)

Fsh (fish) 

Sh (shoe)

Da (duck or dog)

haw (hot) 

ha (hat)

air (Chair)

Poppa (I honestly haven't heard her say my name - she loves her Poppa!)

Another tangent on language - isn't it funny how children mix up words sometimes? Frog has this hysterical confusion over the word "pinecone" - she invariably refers to it as "cannoli." Hahaha I have no idea when she ever even had a cannoli, but the substitute came and it is very endearing. I love this so much!!

I can remember each of my children making some pretty sweet slips of the tongue when they were young, too:

• Frog and Bird's Dad, my oldest son, called a lawnmower a "Molly-or" for years.
• Uncle W, my second son, used to talk about going up and down the stairs, and instead of saying "up and down," he said - I kid you not - he said "Habitrol" hahaha (His aunt was trying to quit chain smoking when he was a toddler/preschooler - this med was a frequent conversation topic...somehow the idea merged, and he simply couldn't shake it...so funny.)
• my youngest son, Uncle B, received lots of ribbing from his brothers for calling the basement "the bagel," when he was little.

I can go back into my own childhood and think of more slips -

• I remember my whole family teasing me/echoing me, when toddler me said "oble-lay" instead of "over there"...for years and years, if "over there" was the answer to your question about where something was, this was the loud retort - OBLE LAY!
• My younger brother had a "bee-ka-ma" rather than a blanket.

This is just the fun cycle of learning language, I suppose! What about you/your loved ones - any funny language slips?

Word play

I am participating in the
 Slice of Life.  
All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day, 
on Tuesdays.
Thank you, Two Writing Teachers!

In recent days, there have been several moments where I have found myself puzzling over words, and I decided the mini-stories behind the words would make for today's slice. I'm not sure that these snippets have any real connection, except for the word play involved. Just a fun write!

1. Daughter-in-law's parents

I puzzle over what to call my daughter's in law's parents. There really is no word in the English language. There is something about these long phrases -
daughter-in-law's parents,
relative by marriage,
co-parents-in-law,
that seems distant, formal, keeping someone at arm's length. They all feel stilted. Funny, I don't think I wondered about this at all for the first years of my son and daughter-in-law's marriage...I mean, we were all new to one another, and I found the terminology fine, normal. However, something has changed with the grandbaby - she has brought us closer. I don't feel any distance to the 'other grandparents,' except for the fact that I have to say OTHER grandparents. I mean, whoa - a grandchild - we are forever connected to one another now. We equally love her. We are equally devoted to her. We need a better term for one another, something shorter and kinder, something that is easy to say. My Google search revealed that other languages have a term for this relationship:
Spanish "consuegros,"
French "belle mere,"
Malay "besan,"
Yiddish "machatunim."
There are probably many others. Isn't it funny that English doesn't have one? Could I make one?
I started playing around with possibities - how about "mamadil" (mother of daughter-in-law), and correspondingly, of course, mamasil (mother of son-in-law), daddydil (father of daughter-in-law), and daddysil (father of son-in-law). Or maybe you could follow the same pattern in reverse: dilma, silma, dildad, sildad.
I was sharing this wacky train of thought with my son and daughter-in-law at brunch one morning over winter break, at a restaurant, when my daughter-in-law exclaimed "pecan roll!" I looked at her with great surprise and delight - yes, that's a silly and unique suggestion for the word! But, a mere moment later, I realized, she was simply nudging my son to order these for the table. We all had a good laugh at my confusion.
So, now, I find myself thinking of her mother as pecan roll.

2. Evening.

I was reading some inconsequential article in the newspaper about a cooking recipe, which noted the need for 'evening the ingredients.' This got me musing about how rarely I say 'evening' in this way - how I almost always think of evening as that time after my long school day, that time when the sky darkens, that time before bed. However, to 'even' things is to make balanced or leveled or same...I think of a teeter-totter, how it goes up and down, and there's this lovely, rare balance in the middle, when the seats are evening. Evening. What if I thought of my evenings as a time of balance? That is the magic of the very best evenings, isn't it? When we regroup, catch our breath, reflect on the day, put our feet up - ah, the great evening. Tony and I have taken a step towards 'evening' with a new year's resolution to sit together at dinner with the television off. There is no TV news blaring at us. For too long now, I have felt as if I needed to 'catch up' on the news when I got home from teaching. [Ha, 'evening news' - there's a contradiction in terms...I am by no means calm and balanced after watching.] Now, instead, we light candles and sit together at one end of our table, and talk. Or, go quiet together. Connecting, after our long day apart. Evening. This is a very nice, inspiring way to look at this time of day in this new year.
Evening.

3. Uh-oh.

Frog is fourteen months old now and has discovered the word/sound/utterance "uh-oh." She notices when things drop or bump, when we struggle to get a diaper on her, or a tight shirt over her head, and she and we will say "uh-oh!" Now she has claimed it for herself as she eats. When she is full and no longer wants to eat, she starts flinging extra pieces of food or the spoon down onto the floor with a rowdy "UH-OH!" Her parents had warned us about this new 'trick' of hers. It did not take long to see it in action. One night recently, Tony and I were eating dinner with her, alongside her, taking turns feeding her and feeding ourselves. She seemed to be slowing down in her eating, and I was slowing down in giving her food, trying to avoid the "uh oh" show. She gave an insistent "mmm-mmm!" which I took to mean "I do want more," so I put a couple chunks of sweet potato on her high chair tray. Immediately, she grabbed one, threw it to the floor with vigor, and exclaimed "UH OH!" Tony and I looked at each other and then looked right at her and said, practically in unison, "It's not 'uh-oh' if you do it on purpose." Poor Frog! She didn't like that - her eyes watered and her jaw quivered. When had her grandparents ever reprimanded her? Then she grabbed the other chunk of sweet potato and threw it to the floor.
No 'uh oh,' though.

4. Patient.

Whenever I visit Dad (age 90) in his nursing home, I take stock of his decline. He has Parkinson's, and this means a whole host of other things - weakening muscles and increasing immobility (he is confined to a wheelchair now), dementia (his is mild, but growing), depression, and ever increasing inability to talk or to recall specific words. It's a pretty horrid disease, the way it ravages a once strong body and mind. On my most recent visit, I was there for his lunch time, and assisting with his meal. We were nestled in the back of the dining room, at a window that looked out onto some beautiful trees. It is my favorite place to sit when I visit him - it cheers me, and, hopefully, cheers him a bit. That's my minimum goal, typically - to cheer Dad a bit. He can be very quiet and sad these days. There he was with that lunch, wrestling with his fork, trying to 'catch' a bite of chicken (and I had cut up this chicken into small, manageable bites - much like I do with Frog. Yeah, it's depressing). As he played 'cat and mouse' with his fork and food, I noticed and (inadvertently) said aloud - "Oh, you don't have anything to drink...I guess they haven't brought drinks around yet." I scanned the room to see if other residents had been served. He stopped eating and said - "You can get up and take care of that yourself." (That was SO one of his parenting lines - 'quit your complaining and just do it'.) I teased him back, with a big smile - "Oh no, I am very PATIENT. I learned that from my Dad - he's a very, very patient guy." He stared right at me for a moment, we locked eyes, and he said "THAT was NEVER said about me. No way. No one ever called me patient." And he chuckled.
Patient.