Walkie Talkie

Nate can talk.

I know, I know.  I’m always proclaiming this.  But every time I do, it’s because it’s like he can actually talk now.  Each time he crosses some invisible developmental speech level, it’s just so… apparent.

There are very few times when I can’t tell what he’s saying anymore.  Although, just this Saturday morning Nathaniel was pulling his favorite blanket over my lap on the couch and he kept saying “Eagle.  Eagle.”

Me: “What?  Eagle?”

Nate: “No, Eaaa-gle.”

Jake: “He’s saying ‘Here you go.'”

Me: “He is?”

Jake: “Yeah.  I speak Nake.”  (Nodding knowingly, hands on his hips.)

Me: “Glad someone around here does.”

Despite this indecipherable example, Natesy is busting out significant vocab, real sentences, and dare I say it?  Near paragraphs.  Mostly he says things like:

No, I want it.  Yight saver.  (That’s the uh, light saber.  We have four.)

No, I do’ed it.  Squeegee.

No, I make it.  Agua.

No, I drive it.  Car.

No, I need it.  Sauce.

Mmmm, I yike it.  Yummy.

But then just last weekend he tells me as he’s feeding me a wooden ball in a small play mixing bowl, “Eat it, Mama.  Chockit chip cookie.  Eat it.  No chockit chip i’cream, I said.”  Everything is now followed with an emphatic, slightly perturbed, “I said.”

At school, Miss Ixchel told me how surprised she was when he said, “Roll-up my sleeves.”  And then, “Other one.”  Extending his arms toward her.

I told him he was Jacob’s little brother and he told me, “No beeg.  Beeg.”

But, tonight I heard a couple of old standbys that have been out of rotation for awhile.  “Mama, UpOrDown.”  He likes it when I put him on my lap and then flip him over upside down and backwards… thirty-seven times.

“Mo.  Mo!  Again.”

“Moe?  I thought you were Curly.”