theITbaby

the IT city, the I.T. Baby

misc

Here comes the speech?

Walking and somewhat talking
Just walking and mumbling to herself at the Music City Center

Maggie has no interest in answering questions, parroting what you’re saying, or doing much other than pointing and saying a word. Well, that is until lately.

We’ve been feeling a bit worried about this sometimes due to a friend’s kid being absurdly advanced, but reassured by other children that she’s about right.

Maggie’s been a combo of pointing and some miniscule sign language for most of her needs until recently when there’s a definite series of words she’s stringing together that unfortunately we don’t understand.

And it frustrates the hell out of everyone involved. I’ve learned that “Chi she” and “She shees” are “The Chica Show” and “Sesame Street,” although the former also means to turn the TV on.

She’s got the word more, and the sign language for more, but they don’t seem to mean the same thing. An example is if she signs for more and says more that means more, but if she just signs it means milk, and if she just says more I’m not entirely sure what that means.

Tonight we dine in hellSimilarly I’m without a clue about some of her prefixes for “kitty” – there’re two or three she uses, which I originally thought were her names for the cats, but they seem to indicate what her actions are going to be toward the cats. I don’t know if she’s saying “pet the kitty” or “this time we dine in hell!” I do know the one to grab and move the cat for now.

“Bubbles” means blow bubbles, find bubbles, or do anything to make this otherwise good father/daughter bonding time as much like a cheesy nightclub experience as is possible as she sees these majestic glowing spheres of perfectly suspended beauty descend slowly to the ground and then stomps them flat.

I start thinking what will we talk about when she gets into multiple word sentences. Honestly attempting to explain that I spent the day removing a Cryptolocker virus off of a person’s computer that works in the same office building as my company doesn’t make too much sense, and it’s about as boring as it sounds.

I have a feeling that the more interesting parts of my day to her will be who I saw as she loves hearing people’s names she knows.

Godzilla SmashShe’s started counting from one to destruction as well. She’s mostly into the tones that the numbers would make. It goes unnn, ooo, eeee, ooor, smash. The smash is usually when four or more blocks are stacked on top of each other, but there’re usually ways to tell this is coming.

Used to all she did was knock over blocks we stacked, but now she’s decided to start creating her own neighborhoods, convincing young up and coming urbanites to move into her cities just chasing that dream, and then let loose the fury that is a 150 ton behemoth lizard monster upon their new homes making sure they realize who’s the boss of the blocks.

That of course is Magzilla.

Pretty soon she’s going to be saying stuff. That’s kind of scary after nearly two years of very little communication.

I sort of hope her first sentence goes well with the smashing of these little towns she builds, otherwise I’m going to be a bit bemused.

Paul King

Paul King lives in Nashville Tennessee with his wife, two daughters and cats. He writes for Pocketables, theITBaby, and is an IT consultant along with doing tech support for a film production company.