Do you ever wonder that of your little ones? I mean, I know they are TRYING to speak English, but trying to figure out a simple request can be almost as grueling as mopping my kitchen floors!!! If my 2 year old is unusually chatty, I'm sure to end up with a headache by the end of the afternoon. And, now that I have a one year old chatter box, I'm considering purchasing stock in Ibuprofen products :)
I'm convinced that my daughter Morgann has devised her own language. My mother-in-law refers to it as Morgannese. She can prattle off a sentence and then simply sit and stare at you, awaiting your response. Mine is usually, "What?" She'll say it again, the exact same way, and stare at me, yet again! "What?!? Mommy can't understand you!" So, again, she'll say the exact same sentence, the exact same way, but a bit slower. I guess she figures that speaking slowly will help her mommy, since mommy tends to be a bit slow sometimes :) Unfortunately, this tactic doesn't work either, so mommy is forced to admit, "I'm sorry sweetie. Mommy just doesn't understand you. Can you show me?" Sometimes she can, but other times, she just gets teary eyed and walks away. Can you say "Total Heartbreak"? How awful she must feel when her own mommy cannot understand her?
Does anyone else have this problem is it just me? And, does anyone have a dictionary that is designed to look up words based on how they sound?
Usually when I sit & think long and hard about what she's saying, using my phoenetic capabilities, I can come up with a few suggestions, and I even get it right sometimes! When I land on the right answer, I receive much praise & applause from my little princess. It's even better when she's asking me a question and she receives the answer that she's looking for. It's always an exciting moment when she can communicate to us and we can respond in kind without having to ask her 3 or 4 times to repeat herself. After all, I know how irritated I get when I have to constantly repeat myself to my children - or husband - but that's usually due to a lack of listening on their part. Morgann has to repeat herself because we just don't speak Morgannese in this house, and it's frustrating to all!
So, as my youngest, Ian, is learning the basics in life - to take small bites rather stuffing the whole piece of whatever he's eating into his mouth, to drink from the correct side of the sippy cup because the liquid will actually come out without having to lean his head back so far it causes him to fall over, and to stand up, and yes, take a step or 2 before falling over and, inevitably, bumping his head on something - I simply cringe when Morgann & he begin to carry on a conversation with each - and then apparently understand what the other has just said. I love the fact that he's learning from his older brother & sister, and that the kids all seem to play very well together - most of the time anyway! But, the thought of my precious little boy learning to speak Morgannese before he learns English is almost enough to send this mother of 3 over the edge!
I've heard of multiples (twins, triplets, etc.) having their own language that they speak to each other, but they generally speak in their native tongue when trying to be understood by others. The 'special language' is usually reserved for the other speaker of the same tongue. In my case, I beginning to think that I need a translator. I've considered taking my daughter to a speech therapist, just to see if she might need a bit of help, but just when I've decided that this would be the approrpriate thing to do, we have an entire day when she seems to be speak fluent English, and I understand every word she says! But, we, of course, always digress again back to Morgannese, and I find myself frustraiting my daughter & myself into headache-ville once again.
So, I'm trying to decide how to handle teaching Ian to speak properly when he spends most of his time conversing with his older sister, who speaks her own language. I guess what's got me concerned right now is that his favorite phrase is "Oh, Uh". Yes, I'm sure it's totally normal for a 1 year old to say things backwards, but should this trend continue, I'm in really BIG trouble. I have a hard enough time speaking as a grown-up should when in the presence of other grown-ups, but learning to speak backwards is sure to send me straight to the looney bin!!!
Monday, November 07, 2005
Are you speaking English?!?
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3 comments:
Hahaha - good luck with that. I remember when my youngest started talking. My one-year-old would say something, then when I didn't understand him, my two year old would "translate." She was a big help. They do learn English eventually. Just tell them that until they do, they need to be patient with their slow mommy. :)
That's so funny! I love that you named her "language"--you'll have to write down some of the cuter mispronunciations to amuse the family with when she gets older!
Caleb, my son, is also two, and we have the same challenges understanding what he's saying, although it's getting better as time goes by. Often he'll spout a long string of (apparent) babble into a sentence, ending in one word we DO recognize, leaving us to try to guess from the one word what he intended to say.
He's very good at letting us know when we've gotten it wrong!
Yes! I hear you - my 2 1/2 year old talks in a teeny tiny mouse voice when she's asking for something that she knows we will probably say no to. So that makes it easy to know the proper response to the unintelligible. But otherwise, I do the same as you - "What? Could you tell me again?" or "I'm sorry sweetie, I don't understand what you're trying to tell me. Could you show me?" Then there are tears and the agonizing, "Mmooooommy!" But she and my 7 month old can laugh and carry on and have a good time "communicating" with each other. It's amazing.
There were identical twin sisters that lived down the road from us growing up. They actually had their own language. When they got older and could speak English, they still used "their" language to communicate with each other. No one else could understand it. It was freaky.
My 2 1/2 year old would say "woof-woof" to identify dogs at first. But then, she started saying, "foow-foow!" She had it totally backwards and had never even seen it written out before. Also, when she says, "I love music!" the word music comes out "mucis." What's so amusing about this is that the first time she decided to say she loves music, she had a cold and a really runny nose. She raises her hands in the air and turns to me with a huge smile saying gleefully, "I love mucous!" Gross. But she meant music.
Is it the early signs of dislexia?
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