Learning to talk is hard work. My boys like to practice. I think this means that they are going to be big talkers, like their dad, and I am going to be surrounded by a chorus of male voices and will have to slam my hand on the dinner table to have a chance to ask someone to pass the potatoes.
Right now, I've got a bad cold that, overnight, snatched away my voice, so I'm talking less than usual. I'm trying to communicate important concepts to Axel like, "No climbing on the bookshelves!" with body language - arm waving, head shaking. Yeah, it's not working. If I was trying to tell him that I was trapped in box and had a jaunty beret and some white face paint, perhaps it would work better. Miming just might be an effective tantrum prevention strategy.
Between two kids, work, flu and cold season, and the incredibly germ-spreading abilities of toddlers, it seems that one of us has been sick every week since I've returned to work, and most often that one of us is me. Hmmm...wonder if my body is trying to send me signals through the snot, like, "Hey! Slow down, lady. Take a nap!"
While I'm talking less and using a word or two in place of a sentence just like a toddler - cheese, nap, hot, no! cough cough cough - the boys are talking more.
Jonas' practicing takes the form of a near-constant gurgle and coo. It sounds like a cross between a cat purring and a lawnmower heard from three blocks away, with a heavy dose of saliva. Geee geee rrrrrr geee gee rrrr, bubble bubble bubble.
Axel chants and chatters to himself while he's playing, and then self-corrects. "Co. No. Cow. Coowwwwww. Yeah. Cow." It's his own dress rehearsal for a big farm animal conversation. He cooks, and says to himself, "Cook cook cook. Cookie. Noooooodle. Sooooouup. Cook cook. Spoon. Spoon. Yeah!" The baby monitor plays the sounds of Axel reading books aloud to his pair of sock monkeys, complete with sound effects, "Truck. Daddy! Light, light, light. Weeee ooooo weee oooo. Roar! Booberries. Mmmmm." The story is not always clear from the monitor - is that an ambulance going to save a lion that runs into an overturned farm truck carrying a load of fruit, or a fire truck that has been attacked by a mutant lion on the hunt for blueberries?
Though I can't comfort Jonas very well right now - rasping out lullabies is not soothing - Axel has taken over that job. He walks over to his crying brother, pats him on the back and says, "T' okay, Yonas. T'Okay." Then, he insists that the two of them sit next to one another in the upholstered rocking chair and sings, "Rock bye baby Jos! Rock bye baby." Jonas likes this, until Axel begins to throw himself against the back of the chair and the force of the rocking makes Jonas slump over onto his nose and fear that he is going to fly off of the chair.
The speed of language aquisition astonishes me. One day it's Jonas' coos, and a short year and a half later it's "More pretzels please."
