Lost in Translation

For a while, I was a bit worried that J.P. wasn't talking a whole lot.  I mean, I wasn't terribly concerned, because he knows his colors (i.e. picks out "the blue straw" when we ask him to, picks out crayons, etc.) and when we read to him, he points to objects in books on command.  Still, he didn't have a very expansive vocabulary.

It didn't help matters that, at times, I fell into the trap of comparing J.P.'s ability to speak and his vocabulary to friends' children at or near his age (especially our friends' daughter, Ayden, the child he's probably around the most).  That's a dangerous thing for a parent to do, since children develop at different rates and, really, at their own rate.  I reminded myself I'd been worried when he wasn't really crawling at one year, then he crawled and almost immediately, started walking.

Well, the last couple of weeks, almost to the day he turned two years and 14 months old, my fears have been put to rest.  He's really starting talking a lot, even speaking in phrases.  Funnier still is the fact that he'll repeat virtually anything he hears.  For instance, I've taught him to say, "Don't tase me, bro!"  That's my personal favorite, although I'm also partial to "J.P. in the house!"  Tonight, I taught him to say, "Good evening, Dada." 

The down side, though, is that sometimes J.P. gets frustrated when he's trying to tell Jude and me something and we don't understand him.  The more he repeats himself and the more we guess incorrectly at what he wants, the madder he gets.  It's not unlike trying to understand someone speaking to you in a foreign language.  Generally, we figure it out, but not always.