There is an evolution of language acquisition. Children learn the parts of speech in fits and starts, usually in the same order as other kids. So what happens when your child simply doesn’t speak before age two or three, and has to be taught everything, rather than pick it up themselves naturally? Curious things, I tell you. Curious things.
As I’ve mentioned before, Jack had only about four words by age two (although looking back at video I can make out a few more that we didn’t pick up on at the time). Due in large part to the awesome Miss Amanda, speech therapist extraordinaire, he began speaking in earnest not long after his therapy started.
Unlike Jack’s siblings, he had no “baby talk.” He skipped that part and went straight for the gold. He had his cute mispronunciations, of course. One of our all-time favourites is “helicopter,” spoken like a tiny Frenchman as “ell-ee-oh-cop-tayr.” For the most part, though, he simply picked up what Amanda was putting down, and went with it.
As a self-proclaimed word geek, I loved seeing Jack’s language unfold. I had always dreamed of having conversations with my child, as every mama does, and for the first time it was happening. And it was happening in a completely unique way.
Lots of small children confuse proper pronouns and genders and tenses. English is an extremely difficult language, even if it is your native tongue. Jack is no exception, although he had to learn the difference in genders through play. Everyone was a boy for a very long time. In fact, it was only recently that his favourite train Julia became the girl she was meant to be.
One of the hardest concepts Jack dealt with was with proper pronouns. He referred to himself as “you” for quite some time, much to the confusion of others. Having a conversation with him was a convoluted affair, trying to figure out which “you” he meant when.
Jack: “You’re going for a walk.”
Me: “No, *you’re* going for a walk.”
Jack, exasperated: “Yes. You’re going for a walk.”
You see where this is going.
As he learned, he started putting his own spin on things. He worked out who exactly “you” was in proper context, and eventually stopped calling women “him.” He even started naming toys and playthings.
This summer we scored a couple of big car hauler trucks at some rummage sales, and adding in the two smaller ones we had at home, Jack created a car hauler family. He named them Mom, Dad, and Baby (both of the small ones were named Baby). Several times I have run from one end of the house to the other after hearing a frantic “Moooommmm!!!” only to find an infant truck in search of its mother. Repeated pleas to change their names have fallen on deaf ears.
Most of the quirks in Jack’s speech are gone now, as he’s five-and-a-half (what?!?) and on to learning French. Now he’s mixing both languages as he’s learning, and it’s hard to recall the days when he barely spoke at all. It’s not something I ever want to forget.
