Monday, November 23, 2009

The Art of Conversation: Infant Version

Man, time flies.... My Little Monkey is now five months old, and all the books and websites tell me that his language development is at a critical point. So I'm supposed to be talking to him often, labeling things, and using lots of vocabulary words. As much as I love to talk, I have found that it's difficult to keep up conversation with such a little person. Sometimes, if I don't force myself to chatter on, I will get lost in my own thoughts and stop interacting entirely.

So, I have found my days are now filled with a stream of narration that ranges from sweet and sentimental, to exhausted and utterly senseless. The constant commentary becomes intensified when I am trying to get MLM to calm down, stop crying, or (every once in a while) stay awake in the car. [Have you ever tried to keep a sleepy infant awake in a car? Crazy.] So I invariably end up sounding sappy, ridiculous, desperate, or some combination of the three.

There are the ever-futile imperative statements: "Hold still so I can cut your nails," and "Stop moving! You're spreading poop EVERYWHERE."

The simple observations: "We're going up the hill. We're going around the curve. We're going down the hill." "Look at you, kicking your feet!"

The painfully obvious. "You're facing the back of the car, and I'm facing the front of the car. That's good because I'm driving."

The cryptic: "We'll talk more about Winona Ryder later."

The unfortunate alteration of pop lyrics: "If you like it then you oughtta put a diaper on it..." and "It's getting hot in here, so take off both your shoes..."

The educational: "These are bananas. They're yellow. These are onions. They are purple, but for some reason we call them red onions. These are avocados. They're green...."

The overly enthusiastic: "That's your ball! Yes, it is!!!"

The completely incoherent: "This is how we, because, um....huh?"

All this is not to mention the painful butchering of countless songs, poems and jokes; or the steady stream of funny noises I emit in hopes of getting just one more toothless laugh. It's like I've become the world's worst stand-up comedian, with the world's smallest audience... A pretty far cry from the pretentious intellectual I tried so hard to be a decade or so ago.

I'm sleep-deprived, I'm inarticulate, and -- sometimes -- just plain silly. But somehow, it's still the best I've ever been.

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