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 Dad on a LarkA blog by Rand Richards Cooper, on parenting baby Larkin
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August 8, 2007
The Dawning
 In the beginning was the Word, the Bible tells us. But parents of a 1-and-a-half-year-old know otherwise. In the beginning is the Wail. Then come the Shriek, the Laugh, the Demanding Grunt, the Gibberish ... And only then — at last, when you've waited and waited — the Word. Today is the day Larkin exploded into language. What a marvelous moment it is. For months, she's been on the brink. Along with "Mama" and "Dada," she had a list of five words she used over and over:
And that was all. If you said to her, "Sweetie, could you take that book and put it on the coffee table, please?," she understood and would do it. But her own language production seemed stalled. Then, about a month ago, she began extending her list, adding "hot," "Bert" (our dog), "Gigi" (her grandmother), "Hazel" (Molly's best friend's baby), "agua," and "bye-bye." Each word involved a lot of effort. She'd struggle, experiment, get halfway round the word ... and finally master it. Then we'd hear it endlessly. For the past few weeks she's been saying "bye-bye" to everyone and everything. Bye-bye to the dog, to the mailman, to her diaper, her cereal bowl, her napkin. The path toward speech takes some amusing little detours. We taught Larkin to say "hot!" by having her touch a hot mug and blow on it. Now, whenever she hears the tea kettle whistle in the kitchen, she starts blowing like crazy and yelling, "Hot! Hot!" But give her a cold bottle to touch, and she says "hot!" And something wet is also hot. Similarly, "no," in addition to its traditional meaning, also means "yes." (We joke that we hope this lasts into her dating years — always say "no," sweetheart, even if you are thinking "yes"!) A few days ago came an interesting little breakthrough. For a long time, whenever we'd ask, "What does a doggie say?," Larkin would answer "Ooof! Ooof!" If we asked, "Can you say 'doggie?' ", she'd give the same answer. Then, suddenly, she started getting it right; she understood the small but crucial difference between "say doggie" and "doggie says." The avalanche had begun. Yesterday we taught her "towel" — and this morning she stood in the bathroom, tugging at the towel and saying, "towel." Ten minutes later she toddled into the kitchen, holding one of her picture books open to a page of colorful tropical fish. "Fish," she said. I turned her book to the bear page. "Baaaeerr!" she said. These were words she had never said before, and moreover we weren't coaching her. She was simply looking at the object and saying the word of her own accord. Right now I can hear Molly and the Lark down the hall, having an anatomy lesson. "What's this?" Molly keeps saying. Ear! Language is never more fascinating than for parents who are present at the creation. Adults have a hard time not taking language for granted. We've been using it for literally as long as we can remember — language, after all, makes memory possible in the first place. What is it like when the words well up out of you for the very first time? Sometimes Larkin will say something, then laugh a triumphant "Hah!," as if marveling at this mysterious power that's suddenly hers. A year-and-a-half-old child is a magician, pulling words out of the hat. Yesterday Larkin knew 20 words, and tomorrow she will know maybe 30. Imagine growing your vocabulary by 50 percent in two days! Molly and I watch in wonder. "She seemed like a real person today," Molly said last night after we put Larkin to bed. I knew exactly what she meant. It isn't that Larkin hasn't been real to us these last 18 months. It's just that more and more, we can imagine being her; we can see a look in her eyes and guess what she is thinking. Words open a big door between a child and the world. Soon the Lark will be able to tell us what she's thinking. To tell us her fears, her needs and wishes, her secrets. To tell us she loves us. And to lie to us, too — to resist, deflect, and manipulate. Language dawns; innocence draws to a close, and she becomes one of us. We have gotten so used to her in this amazing year and a half — to living with her, to loving her — as a person without language. And now she is going to talk. The prospect makes us almost giddy with hilarious anticipation. What will she say?   Rand Richards Cooper is the travel correspondent for Bon Appétit, and is author of a novel, The Last to Go, and a collection of stories, Big as Life.
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