All Talk

Ian has just blown me away lately with the way his speech has advanced. I mentioned the conversation he had with Kaylee on the way to Connor’s baseball game… here’s some others that caught my attention.

At the grocery store, he said “My sing the alphabet,” and then launched into song.

“Dump truck!” (Me – “Oh yeah, there’s a dump truck, very good kiddo, see the way it has two containers attached?”) “Dump truck like a choo choo.”

(Mommy – “How about we go take a bath.”) Ian – How about no. (This may sound like sarcasm, and it was hilariously well-timed… but really he wasn’t trying to throw this back in her face so much as say “That thing you said? No, I don’t want to.”)

He came home on July 11th, and was just talking up a storm: “Hi Daddy! Hi. Want water. Where cup go? Cup. Want Cup. Want Froggy book. (me – It’s a video, kiddo.) Want Froggy bvideo. (opens case, finds it empty) uh-oh! Lost Froggy bideo. Where go?”

Later he gave up on dinner a little too early, and started getting rambunctious. He climbed into Mommy’s seat, right behind her, while she was eating. And he said “Sit beind Mommy. Mommy, how was your today?” (This is almost always what I ask Melissa at dinner, although not quite in those words.)

“No go to dinosaurs, daddy… (heading in the direction of the museum where we saw the dinosaur exhibit with some friends…) … Where Mr. Mahtin and Ms. M’lissa go?” (Yup, those were the friends we saw the exhibit with, hehe.)

On our Monday together (soon to be an entry) Ian and I drove to Mommy’s work-place in order to take her out to lunch. When I called to talk to her Ian was saying in the background.
“Want to talk to you Mommy!”
On the way there I found that the road I wanted to take was shut down. Irate I exclaimed “I wish somebody had told me that.”
(brief pause, and then from back seat)
“My sorry Daddy. Sorry. Sorry Daddy.”
(pause)
“You ok Daddy?”
(pause while I’m laughing)
“Won’t do again. Won’t do it again, Daddy.”

EDIT – Another nice one… on the way to the park the other day I quoted a book to him that we’ve read before “(Some kind of truck) hauls big loads, right Ian?” He spotted a motorcycle and mumbled something back that I could not hear in my fairly loud car. I asked him a couple more times and then realized he was quoting the same book, a different line. “Fun to (mumble)” he said. “Oh that’s right, ‘motorcycles are fun to drive.'” He corrected me very clearly — “RIDE. Fun to RIDE.” So there you have it, the first time my son has corrected me using knowledge gleaned from a book. I have a feeling it won’t be the last.

(We’ve had a few more, I’ll try to remember and write them here; it saddens me greatly when I let these slip through the cracks, particularly when he’s been so vocal lately.)

Combine the above with a load of awesome behavior. His fits don’t seem nearly as… unreasonable. At least most of the time. He sort of wavers back and forth, but we’re happy for the inconsistency, because the fits used to be 100% melt down. A few of those days were literally filled to the brim with “please” and “thank you.” You can see him suddenly go into helpful mode, and it is so heartening as a parent. Melissa and I share glowing happy smiles during these moments. One of these was Saturday, the Fourth of July.