One of my mentors and a well-seasoned parent once said to me, “the baby guessing game”. He must have been about 14 months old at the time, as I was probably recalling some comical event that must have just happened. Due to Jago’s development at that time, I thought he meant, when you are trying to guess what is wrong with the baby. But as time went on, I realized, that was only a very small component of the baby guessing game. The real baby guessing game can be best characterized by when you child is emphatically saying “DAAAAH!!!”, and pointing at god knows what, and then kind of looking at you like you’re an idiot as you desperately try to figure out what on earth he is trying to tell you. It is said that 93% of communication is non-verbal, and communicating with a small child certainly confirms that. But for the 7% that is verbal (and it feels like so much more than that at time), DAH sometimes just isn’t enough to completely get the point across. Dah! Do you mean this? Dah! This? Daaah! This?? Daah, Dah! Well, you’re breathing, you don’t seem to be hungry, and nothings on fire, it can’t be that important. Time to redirect! He does have other words which are a little bit more discrete, like “Ba” and “Baba” and “Dada”, which generally mean mama, papa, or the little Ba Ba Blacksheep book we got him (its multiple choice). Sometimes he does say mama, he’s getting better at that. And he has a pretty distinct sound for bird, which kind of sounds like buuu followed by a “raspberry”. Meah still appears from time to time, but now it generally means “stop doing that”, and the pronunciation is much different than when he was little. The daycare teachers are teaching him sign language too, and he can make the sign for more, please, water, milk and eat, and he sticks his tongue out and makes a panting sound to say dog, which is the sign for dog (at least according to the baby signs book). Its really incredible to watch his little brain work, and it really is like trying to learn a new language. But, like most things, when we really pay attention, you can understand the important stuff!
Raising Little Jago