Jill came into the living room last night and reported
that Alex had just asked for a cookie. I wasn't with them
when this happened, but Jill said she asked him if he
wanted a cookie, and he flashed a huge smile and she gave
him a cookie. "It was almost like a
conversation," she said.
Leaving aside that this was past his bedtime and I'm
the only one around here who eats cookies at that hour,
this is remarkable. "Is he verbalizing?" people
ask us. Is he saying any words? No. For weeks now he's had
a speech and eating therapist who keeps him in stitches
and who has achieved a lot - getting him to put a brush to
his teeth, using his molars to bite a pretzel, getting him
to snap the bacon flashcard into your palm whenever he
wants another slice. Since his eating horizons have
broadened -- even internationally, with falafel and Irish
black pudding -- his word play has increased. Yet so far I
can't say we've heard any words.
He can communicate, often from two or three rooms away.
He communicated his distrust and distress even in the NICU.
His delight was evident to anyone listening to the gurgles
coming from his bed in the second hospital, and since he's
been home we've understood him. Like that time he was
banging the glass on the door of the entertainment unit
and I took his hand and made him stop, and he looked at me
for one instant then ran across the living room and buried
his face in Jill's lap. Often we know what he's trying to
say. Often, but not always. "You've got to learn to
talk, little boy," we've told him.
For
a long time Alex has trilled when concentrating. He did
this in a restaurant and a Finnish woman came up to us and
asked, "Do you speak English with him at home?"
Turns out that children who don't make that noise in
Finland are taken to speech therapists. "Turns
out," I told her, "that children who do make
that noise in America are taken to speech
therapists."
If Jill and I try watching "Larry Sanders" in
the evening without first ascertaining that Alex has
dropped off, he'll screech loud enough to make the
characters flinch on our TV screen. His other phrases
include:
-- "ub:" A faint popping noise with his lips
when he wants to be lifted. Seems encouraging.
-- "da:" Kind of a compliment to me. Means
anything good or wanted. I think.
-- As
sorted
murmurs and mumbles in the bath: Perhaps he's trying to
keep up with the sounds of the water. He has figured out
that "Splashy!" is daddy's word for "Please
soak my shirt!"
I've heard him say many things, sometimes sounding like
Latka on "Taxi." "Good luck to me."
"Ah nah." "Add doubloon."
"Dracula there." "Ha." No sentences in
the high school graduate sense. In the years before Alex,
I always thought that one day toddlers are dribbling at
the lips and the next they're speaking words, usually
starting with "da" and "ma," and
knowing what the words mean.
Alex does say these. For weeks he's brought his lips
together for "mama." I hope that Jill won't weep
any more at the end of Escape From the Planet of the
Apes when the smart baby chimp that Ricardo Montalban
smuggled from his parents says "mama mama" from
the behind the bars of his cage. Every now and then when I
look at him, Alex says "da," following this with
"dadadadadledadle," so I'm unsure he identifies
the two syllables with these big creatures with whom he
lives. "That's right, Alex! Mama and dada! Mama and
dada! Where's dada's nose?" Often at this he reaches
up and touches my face. Sometimes he beams back at us as
if to say "Isn't that cute? They're trying to
talk!"
They say boys talk late. Age three is not unusual. I'm
the youngest of three kids so I have no experience with
listening to the murmurs become words, and I don't
remember when I started talking. My brother does report
that once when I was a little older than Alex is now and
running through the house, my brother tripped me. (Seems
like a worthy use of time for a 12-year-old.) I skidded
headfirst under the kitchen sink and something went tong..
Probably because my parents were home, he went over to
check on me and, as he recalls, I looked up at him and
said the F word. And I was about three years old. So Alex
has time, and let's hope he does as well.
