Day 181: Meaningful Babble

Atom, aside from his other tremendous accomplishments this week of entering into production on another tooth and eating solid food for the first time, started to put language and objects together.

Mind you he hasn't yet quite mastered English or object identification for that matter but he has been producing Baby Babble for a while now. However, now he sometimes will look at an object and start babbling like a tour guide in a museum.

Last night I handed him his elephant rattle/teether and his eyes lit up. He reached out with both hands (because why use one if the other one isn't busy), pulled elephant closer and then proceeded to babble me that "elephants are emotional creatures. Whenever they come across another elephant that has passed away they become visibly upset and appear to mourn the loss."

I told Atom that I DID know that and that I had actually ridden an elephant before in Loxahatchee, Florida at Lion Country Safari. He babbled to me "stop being a know it all".

Day 64: Baby Talk

One of the most difficult classes I have ever taken was about the origins of the English language. The course covered everything from how sounds are formed by the mouth to The Great Vowel Shift. Sounds just like a class every sophomore in college wants to take, right? The hardest thing about the class was that we had to translate text and speak text in "languages" that didn't exist anymore. I had no frame of reference for how everything was supposed to sound. At least when it came to my Spanish classes I could hear the language being spoken or hear it in action whenever I wanted. But Old English? There just weren't many 500 year old people kickin the Hacky Sack around at our student union. It was, in my opinion, cruel and unusual punishment to put such a popular and socially centric young man through theses cerebral somersaults.

Well now I am finding myself in a similar situation where I am trying to decipher a language that seems made up. Atom is talking. "Baby" talking to be clear. CLEAR is precisely the problem though. It is not CLEAR what he is trying to say. It is incredibly sweet. Incredibly endearing. Incredibly frustrating.

He is so so so close it appears to conquering this communication thing. Atom even has a set of built in facial expressions to go along with his coos and grunts. I know two month olds don't typically spout soliloquies but the intention appears to be there. He is so convincing that it makes me feel dense. Dense like his "statement" should be abundantly clear. It is the oddest feeling. Both of us speaking back and forth in languages that sound like gibberish to each other.

Don't get me wrong I am thoroughly enjoying this new challenge and find a sense of achievement when we are able to carry on pleasant conversations for twenty minutes or so at a time. In fact I think I learn more in these exchanges than I do in most of my other "English" conversations I partake in. I just hope we can always share these special moments even if we both think the other person is talking nonsense.