Sylvia's getting more communicative with her signs, which is pretty cool (mostly). This evening, while I was visiting with a friend, Sylvia was rather adamant in her signing for milk, something I would have preferred to ignore given my fatigue and her inability to nurse longer than 30 seconds at a time. But since she signed, very clearly, I did nurse her and she nursed for a couple of minutes and went back to playing. She's also pretty good at more, and very good at pointing to things she wants.
As for speaking she doesn't have mama or dada down yet. She makes the noises, but not consistently in reference to either of us. I'm guessing that's not much of a surprise since Derrick and I don't refer to one another as mama and dada, so it may still be a while before she knows what to call us (or we realize what she is calling us). Nevertheless, tonight, after Derrick asked if she wanted to brush her teeth, Sylvia said, "buush teess, teess." Probably just an imitation of the sounds he was making, but still way cool.
(Of course, my father in law reminds me her first word was "snack" because of her cry, "nak, nak!")
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think language would be the hardest part of raising a child, for me. English is such a crappy language and the way we use it is even crappier. Since the vast majority of English-speakers operate completely oblivious to the shortcomings of the language, they get perpetuated and worsened from generation to generation. In reality, I don't think 1984 is possible for the simple reason that control of languages just isn't possible in the way Orwell imagined.
ReplyDeleteIt's exciting to hear about Sylvia... when are you coming out this way next?
We'll be out sometime in December, though we're not sure exactly when yet.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that Orwell was trying to predict a true future as much as warn of the dangers of letting a centralized government control our culture in addition to our military. I'd agree language isn't possible to control in quite that way, but I think ideas, and particularly information, can be skillfully deployed to much the same ends. Doublespeak, even if not exactly as Orwell painted, is a big part of the rhetoric we've all been listening to for a while now.