While I was in Vegas this past week, Simon picked up some new linguistic ability. I had heard “wabble” (waffle) and “yewow” (yellow) before my trip, but “You know what?”, “apple”, “Ernie”, and “bubuly” (blueberry) are all post-trip additions, leading up the big highlight: His first sentence.
We’ve heard possible sentences before, but we were always unclear as to whether Simon was just mimicking us or if we heard correctly. Some of that babble can sound a lot like real language. But there was no mistaking this, it was loud and clear. Unfortunately, it was also a rebuke of me, using my own words no less. We were standing in the laundry hallway, next to the door leading to the basement at Jim and Evie’s house. Simon pulled the door open, I went to close it, and in the resulting push-pull of things Simon lost his balance and fell down.
At which point he collected himself, looked up at me, and said clear as day, “Mommy, nice!” As in, “Mommy, be nice to me” or “Mommy, you have to be nice.” He hears this from me every day-multiple times-when he pats the cats too hard, pulls the cats’ tails, “brushes” mine or Matt’s hair by beating us over the head with a hairbrush, or engages in any other number of rough-play toddler classics.
I guess I’m glad to see Simon stand up for himself, but I do wish his sentence to me had been something, well, nicer.