Tad Speaks!
Tad has a new saying.
“Oh, man.”
I have no idea why he’s picked it up all of a sudden, but he seems to have a perfectly appropriate context for it, and has no hesitation in using it.
Two examples from yesterday:
We were over at my parents’ house yesterday – the kids hadn’t seen them all weekend, which is very rare. Auntie had a softball tournament out-of-town, so they weren’t at church on Sunday. Ane was quite vocal about asking where her Grandma and Gichan were, so she was really pleased to see them. Tad was up to his usual tricks, including grabbing his sister’s cup of milk after she’d abandoned it and “accidentally” spilling it on the floor. As I’m wiping it up and Gichan is handing me the orange cleaner to wash with, Tad sighs. “Oh, man.”
Later, it was too, too quiet. Grandma discovered Tad, who had stolen my bagel, hiding in the dining room and shoving little pieces of bagel down the forced-air vent. Deprived of his fun, Tad sighed again. “Oh, man.”
It’s hard not to crack up when he says this, because most of what comes out of his mouth is total gibberish. We can barely bribe him to actually say words – I was taunting him with an animal cracker until he said “cookie” yesterday, and it took him forever to say it instead of begging like a puppy. “Coo-coo,” he finally said, and was instantly rewarded. I love hearing real words come from his mouth, because he’s so cute when he talks. The problem is, he thinks he’s talking when he’s speaking his gibberish (which is probably some pig-Latin version of Jawa, for all we know), because his inflection and expression are perfectly in synch with a real conversation.
His lack of language has bothered me a little, especially since I can’t reliably bribe him to talk. If we ask him to say something, he usually gives us this coy little grin, which essentially means, “I know you want me to say it. I’m not gonna.”
The boy is 22 months old. I would love for him to actually call me “Mama” (as opposed to “Dada”) before he turns 2. Tad? What do you think?
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June 14th, 2007 12:24
Don’t hold your breath. Little Cousin’s in the same boat. While “bye-bye” and “up” are spoken without prompting, she’s working on “dada” and when we prompt her to say “mama” she just smiles as if to say, “I don’t fee like it right now.”
She’s still fluent in her own, perfectly inflected gibberish, too. I swear that Tad and Little Cousin understand each other.
June 15th, 2007 21:41
It’s funny you mention the “oh man” thing. Last week both Swee’Pea and TheMonk have begun saying “Oh MAN!” whenever I take off their diaper. It’s hilarious. I’ll definitely have to bust the daycare provider for her lack of enthusiasm when changing their diapers! lol