An Explosion of Language

The other day, after I put our daughter, Mayla, down for her nap (something I like to consider her siesta, for she takes it after a hearty lunch), I heard noise from her room through the walls of ours. I couldn’t, at first, make out what it was, just that it was something distinct from the familiar drone of her white-noise sound machine. It was higher, sweeter, melodic. 

I listened more closely for a few seconds, and then I heard it clearly: “Mama. Dada. Ama. Pay-pa. Oouu. Mama. Dada. Ama. Pay-pa. Oouu.”

Our one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, from the quiet, solitary darkness of her crib, was talking to herself.

Mama is my wife, Carly. Dada is me. Ama is our dog, Ama. Pay-pa is our other dog, Paisley. Oouu is Mayla’s word for herself, a word she learned because we consistently refer to her as “You” that she says with a knowing inflection, pointing to her chest. (It’s one of those hilariously adorable things that we should probably soon fix.)

These are the members of our immediate family. They are also five of the what Carly, a speech therapist who works with children (which means she should likely be the one writing this), estimates is the 200 words Mayla knows. 

More than anything, talking has marked her transition to full-blown toddlerhood. As a baby, Mayla’s primary method of communication, like that of most babies, was crying. That soon evolved into grunts and similar noises and pointing at things. She started to do a few basic signs that we had taught her, too. But words were not a major part of her life until a few months ago. 

Mayla’s first word was baa (ball). She was 10 months old. Since then, and especially in this last month, it seems like she has learned new words every day, every minute. She is a sponge: It usually takes us saying a word a few times, sometimes only once, for her to remember it and later say it, often in the proper context, to the astonishment of her parents. She knows everyday words like wa-wa to more specific ones like puz (prayers). She knows words in three languages—English, Spanish, and American Sign Language—and basically every sound any common animal makes.

I write none of this to brag; Mayla is pretty typically developing, according to Carly, who knows these things. I write it simply to document this explosion of language, when words have become her toys.

The talking begins immediately as her day begins. When Mayla is woken up in her crib by Carly or me or Ga-ma, she almost immediately calls for the other parent and dogs to come join. Within a few minutes, she brings her hand to her mouth and says, “Et.” She wants breakfast. When we confirm her desire by asking, “You want to go downstairs to eat breakfast?” she gives a little yip, accompanied by an excited hand thrust, to indicate that we have correctly interpreted her morning wishes. 

As she waits for her breakfast to be prepared, she will tell you what Carly or I is doing in the kitchen—cük—and often demand to go ow-si to check in on the backyard trees (tus) and see if there are any aye-pa (airplanes) flying uppa (up high), where, at night, she loves to identify the muuhn. If it is cold outside, she will tell us by hugging herself, shaking, and saying “Couuu!” She will also invariably yell “Ama!” at the dog, raising the pitch and changing the inflection of her voice to indicate exasperation, if Ama is doing something even slightly impermissible. (This will never not be hilarious.)

When breakfast is ready, Mayla will ask to wash her hands in the ka (kitchen) sink, and then ask to be placed in her hai-cha to begin eating, but not before she demands her bua (bib) be placed around her neck. If we forget to give her a utensil to eat with, she will remind us, repeating fük (which sounds alarmingly close to a different four-letter word) until we bring her a fork from the cabinet. She then will often tell us what food she is eating—she knows the names of too many foods to list here, but my favorite one is ah-ka for avocado—and ask for muah once she eats all of her favorite food on the plate. Breakfast usually takes at least 15 minutes. 

For the rest of the day, Mayla spends time playing with tuz (toys), from a ta (train) to pehs (pegs), or reading büks, telling you if she’d rather read tu-ah (“The Little Blue Truck”) or a Christmas book featuring her current favorite person and word: Suh-ta. Perhaps she will then take a wuk (walk) with her Ga-ma or want to play, again, and so walk over to her parents, grab them by the hand, and demand that they get up (this she says perfectly). 

When dinner time comes, Mayla will often demand to hep, dragging a chair over to our kitchen island so she can stand on it and snap some green beans or pour the sweet potatoes onto the baking sheet. Once she is sufficiently fed, she will repeatedly tell us “Ah-da! Ah-da!” and shake her hands to indicate that she has indeed finished eating, and so it is time for the next stage of the evening, either bath or bud (bed). In either case, she will grab both of our hands and walk us to the edge of the stairs, a giant smile painting her face as she proudly exclaims “Toooo!” to indicate that she is walking two parents. This makes our hearts full.

Her final words of the day are often accompanied by an action: a huaa (hug) or kus (kiss) to say goodnight.     

I used to be a journalist and currently run a saccharine dad blog; Carly’s job revolves around helping young people develop language. We both appreciate the importance of words, those “most inexhaustible sources of magic,” as Dumbledore famously called them. So watching our daughter, our first child, discover their beauty and power has delighted us beyond measure.

There will perhaps come a day when her tiny, squeaky voice doesn’t bring me complete joy, or even a time when I think that she is talking too much; that day has, thankfully, not yet arrived. For now, I’m simply going to relish every Dada and oouu and kus, going to enjoy this extraordinary stage when our daughter is finding her voice.

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