Thursday, May 1, 2008

Dylan the sly talker.

Dylan still doesn't talk much.  His most clear and consistent words and phrases are "No" "yeah", "mine" and "I donwanna".  Figures.   

But I never hear him attempt to say words.  He just speaks his Dylanese constantly, then all of a sudden a word I've never heard even pieces of before comes out, clear as a bell.  I'm starting to think that the reason he isn't talking is that he doesn't want to say anything until he can say it perfectly.  

He had his second birthday 2 1/2 months ago now, and here is a list of all the words he can say:
Mama
Nana (Keilana)
Yaya
Hi
Bye
Wuv oo (love you)
I donwanna
No 
Yeah
Please
I do
Mine
Car
Baby
Kitty
Doggy
Popcorn (or an approximation of that, anyway)
Pizza
My turn
Go
Huh?
Moo
cocoa

That's it.  I'm still getting used to his lack of language, as Keilana was regularly speaking to me in three and four word understandable sentences by this age.  

"Doggy" was new today.  We were at the park and when we loaded up in the stroller to come home, we passed a woman and her seriously obese chihuahua (seriously, that thing must've weighed as much as Dylan), and he just pointed and squealed, "Doggy!" clear as day.  He's never said anything even close to Doggy before.  All his new words just "appear" like that.  

In the meantime, he speaks to me in fluent Dylanese, complete with oddly mature mannerisms, tones, inflections, etc.  He does sound very much like he's just speaking a foreign language we don't understand, rather than like he's babbling.  Sometimes, however,  he will get quite upset when he says something that is obviously a question and I don't know what the answer is.  

Doug keeps telling me Einstein didn't talk til he was 3, but even if Dylan's smart, he's no Einstein.  Of course, he does seem to see the world a little differently than the rest of us do--I wouldn't be surprised if he were a little bit of an alternative thinker.  I just wish he'd talk to me like a normal little human being!  

1 comment:

...Laura... said...

You know, my nephew Ender was like this. He would babble on and on as though it was a normal conversation. I think he was almost 3 when Megan heard him talking in his room clear as day sentences. She finally got it out of him, but for a while, he'd still choose his own language.

It was really funny once we all found out his little secret, because he'd try and keep doing it. One time I was up in MT, and he was gibber gabbering on and on to me, and I told him I couldn't understand him unless he spoke English. He looks up at me and clearly says, "but I don't like to speak English." It was really funny. We finally broke him of his own language- which is sad, but totally necessary.

I've heard lots of so called geniuses do the own language thing.