Vowel Retention

Originally posted July 5/2007 on "Allison Wonderland"


Simon has a lot to say. He spends a lot of time talking, but he's still a man of few words. English words, anyway.

He says tat (cat), dog, Dus (Gus), Dad-Dad, Daddy, Mum-mum, diss (this) and dat (that), and Hedder (Hilda, the dog next door); we're sure that he's said "nose", "hat" and "head" at appropriate times in the past, but he doesn't like to speak on demand, and he won't repeat those performances for us. Also, he says "nen", which means no- though he uses it a lot less frequently than I thought he would at this age. Oh, and he's started waving and saying "hi".

Other than that, he sounds like he's speaking a foreign language, and quite fluently at that. His voice is extremely expressive, with every inflection he hears us use when we're speaking to him or each other. He expresses his emotions quite clearly... he just choses not to do so in English at this time.

Simon likes consonants. He's not a vowel man. His words come out as "snazznunnz", 'wzzansz" and such most of the time. I think he's actually verbally constipated- he just needs something to loosen his vowels.

Seriously, though. Am I worried? No. OK, maybe it's a bit weird when we meet up with a kid his age who's saying "have more", "ok mama" and stuff like that, but it doesn't make me think Simon's "slow". His hearing's fine- that was tested when he was an infant, so no worries there. He's just taking his time.Apparently I was a baby perfectionist; I never said a word until I could say it perfectly. I'm sure Simon's got his own reasons, and I'm not going to make him feel like he's stupid because he's not speaking in sentences yet.

It will be interesting to finally find out what's going through his mind, what he's saying when he's telling us long stories about his cars and his tiger. Still, I'm going to be a little sad when I don't get to hear him speaking Simonese anymore.

'Cause it's really funny.