Our nearly two year old daughter is feeling frustrated."Ah bebe wame naw ott!" she yells. "Meme nonononononno wah baboo itta!"
Judging from her body language and hand movements, I think she's telling us all off with gusto.
I don't blame her at all! Born with a tongue tie (ankyloglossia - a condition where the frenulum attaching the tongue to the mouth is short and thicker than normal, holding the tongue itself down on the base of the mouth)... this 23 month old rascal constantly attempts to rattle off elaborate sentences which are met by quizzical, stupefied looks by the adults around her.
There is no doubt about the fact that our girl is a smart cookie. When we *are* able to understand what she is talking about (perhaps 30 to 40% of the time) her sentences are often really sensible and even funny.
She asks about dinnertime, expresses food preferences, asks when her daddy will be home from work (and mentions his Bi-ki-kle!), talks about her grandmothers, tries to "read" books, and gives appropriate responses to my questions. She makes jokes about her stuffed animals, oranges, insects and most especially her big brothers - who after all, do provide her with great comic relief.
Lately though, our daughter has been talking up a storm in rushed, complicated sentences and more often than not I have to stop her, bend down to her eye level, and tell her honestly that I didn't understand. This is embarrassing for me and very frustrating for her.
"I'm so sorry honey ~ " (my typical refrain), "I know you are saying something that is very intelligent and important but I did not understand most of that. Do you think you could try again with different words, and I will pay closer attention to your lips?"
Her sentences typically sound something like, "Mwa Bwova Beega Meeko Bullluuuuuu!" and the only part of it I understand would be the first two words, "My brother..." The really touching part is that she will often laugh hysterically after saying whatever she's said, as though she knows she's said something smart or funny, and then stare at us or look crestfallen when we (her parents) just don't get it.
In many ways, our daughter's life experience so far has been much like that of a foreign exchange student living with a host family... one that really, really, really loves her!
When I was 19 years old and living in Italy with a host family of my own, I came to a point where I could understand nearly everything being said to me and around me. This felt exciting - rather than sitting mildly lost and bored at the dinner table as my Italian brothers and mother conversed rapidly about interesting things, I could finally follow along with the banter between Italian family members and laugh at all the right times in their stories. I vividly remember the first time I feebly tried to add on to one of their jokes and they looked at me with amazement and said (in Italian), "I think she is understanding us! Brava, Brava!"
So I do have some feeling for what it must be like to be our daughter, living with our own vivacious family unit in a little house and listening to all of us chatter away incessantly. Here's this little girl - intelligent and eager to learn - understanding most of what we do and say but having great difficulty in making herself understood in our language.
If she's anything like I was at 19, the poor thing may well experience moments when she just wants to throw her hands in the air and retreat to the sofa to watch TV shows (Caillou, in her case)... which, with its broad actions and gestures is much easier to relate to. There is also far less frustration involved with passive entertainment.
Yesterday evening at a birthday dinner for my sister-in-law, my mother served up a homemade cheesecake covered in berries. It isn't often that our little girl gets to enjoy a sugary treat, as we're trying to cultivate her taste for protein and vegetables before letting her dive into the world of sugar with wild abandon.
As a special treat, we gave her a dessert of berries and a very small slice of the cake, which had almost no sugar in it.
Within about 10 seconds, her plate was empty and she was back with fork in hand.
"MeMe Hungry!" "MeMe wanna MORE!!!"
"Oh, are you still hungry, honey?"
"YEAH!!!! MORE!!!!"
"Would you like more of mommy's salmon and vegetables?"
"Nope!"
"Would you like some more pasta?"
"Nope! MeMe Wann MORE COOKIE!"
The entire table erupted in laughter. "Wow, those may be the most clear words she has ever spoken!" my husband exclaimed.
"She certainly gets her point across," I laughed.
Minutes later when our attention was diverted to a funny story my sister was telling, our daughter - who had clearly decided that language was NOT working for her here - made a stealth raid. Sidling quietly up to her father seated at the table, she reached out a little hand holding a fork and literally lifted his entire slice of cheesecake off of his plate... then carried it over to her own plate at an adjoining table and began to polish it off with gusto before anyone could notice.
One or two of the assembled family saw this take place, alerting us to the theft. What could we do but laugh hysterically?
This is a little girl who WILL take what she wants from life whether it is offered or not.
So I don't worry that the lack of coherent speech is somehow affecting my daughter's self esteem at the age of nearly-two. I'm quite sure she's going to be just fine. She is a survivor - as evidenced by her crazy entrance into the world 6 weeks early - and she doesn't let much stand in her way.
That said, I'd really love to know what she thinks about in that adorably naughty little head of hers. She strikes me as the kind of kid with an awesome sense of humor and I can't wait to understand her two year old jokes. She also tries to sing very frequently and I think she'll be elated when her mouth can make the same words to the songs that she has learned from her big brothers.
If her pediatrician had caught the tongue tie when she was born, there would have been a quick fix - a tiny snip of the frenulum and she would have been fine. Unfortunately as children age it gets a little more complex since they have trouble laying still and typically need general anesthesia.
I've been holding off on the surgery for a long time, wanting to avoid the anesthesia. However I've learned through research that they are improving on this situation and I believe these days a different kind of laser surgery can be performed with local numbing. I'll have to ask one of our close family friends about it as I believe they just had a similar problem taken care of for their oldest son.
For so long I have hoped that somehow her speech would improve by itself with time... but it's now becoming evident that my girl yearns to share much more of herself with the world than she currently is able to.
After all, "Ah Mammmeee Wawa Brudda EEEUUUU Aweeeeeeeeeeee TaDa Lauga Nuchel," might just mean something brilliant and life changing. She might be doing quantum physics in that little skull of hers! More importantly, she wants us to really *know* her -- and I want her to feel known and loved for who she is and what she thinks about.
I think we're fast approaching a time when our little bird may need to have the tethers removed from her rhetorical wings so that she can soar (and speak!) at last.
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