Mr. Articulate

My father has been fascinated with Sam's language development. (It has been quite interesting, I do agree.) He is the boy who, at 18 months, only would say about 15-20 words, most of which were names of pieces of heavy machinery. The kid wouldn't say "red" when you pointed to a red apple, but he could look at a picture of an excavator and tell you "eh-ya" (his version). He called himself "Am" until around his second birthday and had just made it to short three-word sentences when he turned two.

(Side note: I remember his first 3-worder: After having left Joe in Illinois on New Year's Eve to go back to Muscatine by ourselves for the next month, I heard him repeating in his carseat "Am uv Ad. Ad uv Am." which was "Sam loves Dad. Dad loves Sam." Think Joe had been trying to make sure Sam didn't forget him?)

So - we were all quite amazed when the child was pretty much speaking in paragraphs a short few months later. Since then, it has been my father's goal to "teach Sam big words." He has this dream of Sam walking into his kindergarten class, sputtering off a long string of 4-syllable words, his kindergarten teacher standing with her jaw open in amazement, ready to call Harvard to see if they are taking applications from 5-year-olds. (If this does indeed happen, I am sure the teacher will instead be thinking "Wow....this kid is weird!")

The latest word he has been focusing on is "articulate." My dad claims he did not know what it meant until he was 23, so he thinks it would be simply wonderful if Sam was saying it at 3. I have tried to explain that even if he can get Sam to repeat it, that does not mean he will understand it, but he presses on anyway.

I didn't really think Sam knew what was going on with the focus on big words from my dad, since he seems to ignore most of the attempts to get him to say multi-syllable word-of-the-day. However, I found out differently when we recently met a friend of my brother and sister-in-law's for a playdate. She has a three-year-old daughter who truly is articulate.

(According to my brother and sister-in-law, the words this girl uses in daily conversations are more advanced than me most days. Of course, I spend my day communicating with Sadie, who still resorts to random animal-like screams when she wants something, so it's probably not a fair comparison. This 3-year-old gets to talk to adults.)

Of course, in true toddler fashion, she would not say a word to me. Every question I asked her was met with complete silence. I finally said, "Zara, I know you can talk. Matt and Elisa have told me about all the big words you know." She looks up at me and says - you got it - absolutely nothing.

And then Sam chimes in on the conversation. "My papa teaches me big words."

I guess he has been paying attention, after all. Though when pressed for details, he couldn't come up with a single one. Maybe I should start making flashcards.