Charlie Update
Today’s Charlie Update is about talking. So far, he understands about 20 words or so, and he says about 7 or 8 of them. Things like “dog”, which sounds like “duh”, or “bath” which comes out sounding like “buh”. And some monosyllables that we’ve taken to mean “Gimme that thing” or “Man, you people are really bumming me out.”But the big one, the one he’s really in to, is “Oh, no!”. He says it all the time. If he weren’t so clumsy in general, I would think he’s intentionally dropping things, so he’ll have an excuse to say “Oh, no!” and point at the thing he dropped.
He gets behind it, too. Like when he’s pilfered my cell phone and runs off with it. When it slips out of his hands, he’ll say, “Oh, no!”, really spacing out the words, adding special emphasis to the “no”.
He says it so often, he’s stopped saying several of the other words he had been saying. My theory is he’s been practicing, and he’s not going to say anything else until he’s really nailed the “Oh, no” thing, ‘til he’s got it down pat.
Now, I’m a somewhat competitive person, but I don’t think I have it in me to be competitive about my kids. In the nature/nurture debate, I come down very solidly on the “nature” side. The kids are who they are, and if someone else’s kids are doing something better, well, that’s just how it all worked out. No sense getting worked up about it.
But still. This talking situation has me, if not worried, at least somewhat concerned. I keep hearing from the other parents whose kids are around Charlie’s age about all the wonderful things they’re all saying. I’ll read the occasional facebook status update saying something like, “This morning my son pointed at a homeless man and said, ‘That man didn’t make very wise choices, did he?’”
That might be a bit of an exaggeration.
I suppose I am justified being a bit tense about talking. Autism runs in the family, and late talking can be a signs of autism. But I know enough about autism to know that Charlie is not autistic. He just smiles too much. He’s too engaged with the world.
But really, it’s more like that movie Parenthood, where Rick Moranis has the kid who’s learning French and how to play the cello, and Steve Martin has the kid who likes to butt things. With his head. What if Charlie’s the head-butter?
And if he is, so what? It wouldn’t do anyone any good to pretend otherwise. Despite what you might have heard in after school specials, if you dream big dreams, believe in yourself and do your best, there are still limits to what you can accomplish. There’s only one starting first basemen for the Cardinals, and that guy almost certainly won’t be your son, no matter how much he believes in himself, no matter how hard hard he tries.
This shouldn’t be an excuse to give up, just be realistic. All that time he spends working on baseball could have been spent working on something he really might be good at. There’s hope for everyone, just so long as you figure out where your strengths are and work with them.
But still. Given the choice between “fluent in French” and “good at head-butting”, I have a preference. It’s not head-butting. That’s just not a strength that’s easy to work with.
I was able to temper my concern by noting to myself that parents are prone to being somewhat — I don’t want to say “deluded”, exactly, just that they can let the excitement of parenthood lead them to believe things that might not have happened.
It’s easy to do. When kids learn to talk, they start out saying total nonsense. But sometimes they’ll say nonsense in the vicinity of something and it just coincidentally happens to sound like the thing they’re in the vicinity of. Like if a one year old says “guh guh” near the trash can, the more excitable parent might say, “Wow! She just said ‘garbage’! My daughter is a genius! Harvard here we come!”
But at some point, the nonsense becomes real words. And it’s a gradual transition. They don’t just go from baby talk to reciting Shakespearean sonnets. Usually.
Well, I was chewing over that, trying to decide if maybe we need to start figuring out how Charlie can coast on his winning personality. I mentioned all this to my mom. She said not to worry too much. She noted that when I was a baby, besides being extremely happy, I was completely unexceptional. And I managed to get it all turned around at some point. Frankly, I wouldn’t say I truly came into my own until I was about 28 or so.
Some people really are late bloomers. Maybe Charlie’s one of them. Or maybe not. In either case the time to start worrying hasn’t gotten here yet.
So that’s the story with Charlie talking. I suspect he’ll get it all sorted out when he’s ready for it. He’s very independent. He wants to do his own thing. You learn language by listening to people and he’s not interested in listening to people right now. He wants to chase the dog around, run around the house, steal the remote. And if he drops it, then he’ll get to practice his favorite line.
“Oh, no!”
