spoken word
October 5, 2013 § 4 Comments
In the tidy space of one day, both children inspired pleasure and amusement with off-the-cuff commentary that left me temporarily speechless.
With an utterance unladylike but honest, my daughter interrupted our bedtime story to acknowledge the villain with an uncluttered, under-the-breath exclamation of character assessment. Her sweet voice projected a more worldly declaration of devious bastard. Smitten with her choice of devious, I was slow to process the noun in her fragmented statement. Accurate and indulgent, appropriate in application and inappropriate for her age, I set aside the book we shared to applaud and inform both word choices; context and comprehension suspended just long enough for me to revel in her language.
Still distracted by my daughter’s unexpected exclamation, I soon found myself pausing over my son’s passionate declaration that school is a husk of broken promises and lies in response to a routine, How was your day? Promised the company of scientists speaking at his school, he piled misfortune on top of misplaced promises to hold adults to empty assurances. I empathized with his disappointment and acknowledged the imperfection of good intentions, while savoring the elegance of his frustration.
Each utterance as sweet as their infant mastery of naming; echos of discovery and exploration in language that carves out space and colors their experiences with self.
in translation
October 23, 2012 § 2 Comments
Speech therapy has been a part of my children’s days and our family vocabulary for the length of their academic experience, beginning in preschool. Their challenges are as unique as their personalities. My son’s needs center around sound. My daughter works to structure her thoughts from jumbled fragments into linear, ordered statements. I can tell you that while I support their efforts to develop these skills for successful lives as adults, I find these imperfections endearing.
Monopoly in my son’s mouth becomes mono-poly, the break in the middle of the word creating a new name that never fails to make me smile. Despite errors in articulation, his vocabulary is rich with words that drip descriptive details. This weekend he was parched and I was smitten. Declarations of misery are well received for the language he weaves into his tirade. When a sound interferes with my comprehension, he spells the word out loud for clarification – adding the injustice of the interruption to his frustrations.
My daughter’s sounds ring clear as a bell, tinkling with an artistic arrangement of thought. She is our Yoda, her sentences often rearranged so that the end is her beginning. Errors in tense create expressions like last night ago or sit be next to me, old favorites now retired from her speech. In moments when words escape my daughter and she is intent on sharing a specific thought she will gather the facts into form providing a visual. For example, when I cut my long hair into a chin length bob she happily reported to others that I had cut my back hair.
My son continues to sharpen his sounds while my daughter shuffles her thoughts into order. I am enjoying the growing ease of communication while holding tightly to happy errors of expression. Most recently my daughter approached me eager for help as she practices writing in cursive. With big blue eyes, serious and determined, she asked if I might teach her to curse. The small slip a playful, albeit unintentional, pun. For me each unique uttering is a memory contrasting innocence with translated intent in the language of my children’s childhood.
literally speaking
November 5, 2011 § Leave a comment
My son has a tendency for literal definitions. The other day, when asked how he was, he told my friend he was gay. Out loud, in a middle school hallway, he outed himself as happy. A week later, he used the word gay in a classroom and was reprimanded. I am now struggling to determine how to explain context and innuendo appropriately for my literally speaking son.
My conflict rests between definitions and defining. My son’s original understanding of “happy” is not incorrect, but to others may not feel appropriate for reasons outside my son’s comprehension. A peer explained to my son that gay is when two boys like one another. My son likes lots of friends, some of them boys. Literally, the second definition is missing something too, but my son does not yet know about the birds and the bees and I am not sure either of us is ready for that conversation. So how do I approach the unspoken innuendo without supplementing context outside my son’s knowledge?
To add another layer of complexity, I like that my son doesn’t define people by color, faith, or sexual preference. I am hesitant to begin dividing people into categories to explain a misinterpretation. I am lost in translation, literally.
coded
May 23, 2011 § Leave a comment
My son has his own soundtrack, a stream of sounds and commentary that accompany him as he moves through the world. Sitting beside him in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, he began making sound effects to accompany the portable game that held his attention tightly. I tuned out his familiar sounds and began reading a book. As we waited, distracted and absorbed in our own activities, a new sound joined the space. A young girl making a mechanical click deep in her throat settled into a seat nearby.
Next to me, my son was drawn out of his game curiously enamoured by the stranger’s sounds. His eyebrows drawn together and his brown eyes focused, he watched the girl before asking me simply, Why? The girl’s mother, kind and patient, explained her daughter was trying to communicate in a language of her own. I let the woman’s words guide my son, waiting for his response.
He watched the girl in silence, listening closely. Then, his eyes registered excitement. Moving so that he stood between the girl and her mother, my son sought a conversation in Morse Code. I would love to say they chatted, perhaps they did. Later, we parted ways, my son said good-bye and the girl offered her response. I held the moment close and gave thanks for the kindness of children and the simple language of friendship.
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