uh oh!

Dear Sava,

It's 8:30 a.m. and we're in a hotel room in New Jersey near Philadelphia. You're sleeping in a portable crib in the next room, your mother is sleeping on the bed in this room, and Nico is sleeping on the warm spot I just vacated to write this blog entry. It was a difficult night. You were overtired and would not go to sleep. Then, you would not stay sleeping. This morning, we're staying in bed just a little bit longer. We want you to be bright-eyed for your first visit to the zoo.

You've been practicing your animal noises all week. It became evident last Friday that you've begun speaking real words ("This is an umbrella. Sava, can you say 'umbrella'?" "brrruhh"), but you seem to relish in animal sounds and playing your linguistic games with me.

The game

"Sava, what does a cow say?"

"Moooooo"

"Great!"

"Sava, what does a horse say?"

(You wag your head back and forth because this is the movement your mother makes when doing her horse imitation.)

"Great! You're such a smart little horse."

"Sava, what does a chicken say?"

"buh buh buh." (Your version.)

"Excellent!"

"Sava, what does a fish say?"

(You open and close your mouth without making a sound.)

"Yes! You're so amazing," I say.

"Sava, what does a baby say?"

Let's just pause a second while I explain. When you were an even smaller baby your grandfather taught us that the sound of the tongue clicking in the mouth is utterly fascinating to babies. You'd be crying and he'd click his tongue and that would be it. You'd stop crying and simply stare at his mouth waiting for the magic sound to happen again. Then I started noticing that a lot of people make this sound to babies. At some point you learned how to do this yourself, but it fell out of fashion some time ago, until now.

"Sava, what does a baby say?"

You look at me with the funniest expression and give a simple "cluck" of your tongue. Then you brace yourself for me tickling and kissing you.

This is your little game. The cluck isn't tied to the baby sound. Some mornings when you want to be kissed and tickled you'll cluck for every animal. Then, you learned how to say "uh oh". We think it must have come from daycare, because we don't say this. Now, you have a repertoire of sounds. Cats, dogs, farm animals, uh-oh, and you can shake your head yes and no (although, you prefer no).

Something funny happened when you began learning how to speak. A whole host of insanely funny expressions came along with language. The other day you were giving me a really forced and fake smile that seemed to devolve into a demonic looking bat child. Somehow, I understood this was a face you reserved only for me. After about 30 minutes of this, and other expressions, I called in your mother and you replicated the face several times. Everyone was in hysterics with how odd it was to see such a pronounced sense of humor from this pretty little child.

Since then, I've begun to notice that when I put you in front of a mirror, you begin practicing the faces that later show up when you're throwing a tantrum. Like last night, before and after we arrived at the hotel. I've also listened to you practicing your screaming voices. You cycle through them when you don't get what you want. You're beginning to match the right voice with the right face in order to help the will find its course. That's natural. But what I love, is that along with this exploration comes all of the games and the trial sounds and faces.

One of my favorites is your monkey. It's one of the reasons we've driven up to Philadelphia to go to the zoo with you. I can't wait to see your expression when you finally see monkeys--in person! Not just your dad jumping around the room, but real live monkeys. I can see you now, dancing around a room while scratching at your armpits and making your silly faces while clucking your tongue.

Then again, who knows what you'll pick up on today. All we do know is that it's going to be the highlight of our week.

Love,
Dad