Noisy Boys

When it comes to talking, the boys have completely different styles.  Leon never stops babbling.  (I don't know where he gets it...)  Most of what he says is gibberish, but there will be random phrases thrown in just for fun.  While on vacation we were in the car, and the kids were watching a DVD.  We went all out for the trip, and we got a portable DVD player with dual screens that attach to the headrests so that they would all have a great view of whatever mind-numbing programming we put in the player.  This could be one of the smartest things we've ever done.  The player plugs in to the cigarette lighter in the backseat.  I was turned around talking to Ree when we hit a bump, the player came unplugged, and the screens went black.  Disaster!

Leon immediately started chattering, telling me there was a problem.  I heard something along the lines of, "Gebdarbadeedoobehdeekikki you broke it! debbadeedumdagebadeedun."  The phrase in the middle was crystal clear.  Even Ree laughed.

There was a similar outburst from him a couple of weeks ago.  My mom was in town and she was dishing out food for dinner.  In the middle of all the chatter Leon managed to say, "More veg-eh-tah-bulls, please."  How could you not comply with that?

Meanwhile Michael didn't say anything for a long time, and I knew it was a lack of confidence, rather than a lack of vocabulary.  When he was desperate, words came out clearly.  One night at snack time he asked for "wah-ter-meh-lon" and every syllable was carefully enunciated so that I couldn't possibly misinterpret his demand for more delicious fruit.  Another heartbreaking night in which he was in teething agony he asked for "meh-dih-cine."  Also while on vacation, I caught him practicing his words in bed after he had been tucked in for the night.  He was going through the list of everyone he had played with that day and he clearly named Mama, Baba, and An-doo. 

Then, suddenly, about 10 days ago, he started talking.  He became a fountain of words.  Last week he probably used 30 new words, and this week there are more.  We thought this would help with his constant frustration and moaning, but it is currently making it worse.  Now that he knows that we know what he wants, he wants it NOW!  But we will work through this.

Of all the things they say, my favorite phrases out of each boy are there names for each other.  Although they have each said the others' name, they prefer to use other phrases.  The other morning the boys were getting in their high chairs for breakfast.  Leon sat down first, and he wanted to make sure I didn't forget Michael. So he pointed to Michael's chair and said, "Other boy."  Yes, I would get the other boy.  Last night in the tub I asked the boys who wanted to get out first.  Michael pointed at his brother and said, "That one."  I confirmed he wanted Leon to get out first, and Michael nodded his head so vigorously up and down I thought he was going to get whiplash.  "That one" it was.

Michael, Man of Words

There is much to be said for being 17 months old.  Life is just so dang simple.  Each day when I get home from work, Michael is the first to greet me.  He and the dogs are often waiting at the door, noses pressed against the glass, hoping to fall on to the porch when I open the door.  I nudge the dogs out of the way, get everyone back in the house, pick up Michael, and give him a hug and a kiss.  And then we have this conversation.  Every day.

Me: How was your day?
Michael: Good
Me: Did you have fun?
Michael: Yeah

Then he grins and buries his head in my shoulder.  

We then move on to discuss other things like what toys he played with (vroom!), what Elmo was talking about today (vroom!), and the oil spill in the gulf (vroom!).  But it amazes me how sincerely happy he always is when I ask about his day, and how he expects to have our initial conversation every day.  Without it, I think he feels a bit cheated.

He Speaks!

Until he was five months old, Leon was the happy brother.  Michael may have cooed first, but Leon cooed more and louder.  Leon was the one who woke us all up with his babble during the night.  But then it suddenly stopped.  He had a major setback.  Instead of trying to communicate with us, he would just lay around and cry.  Later, when he could sit, he would sit and flap his arms and cry.  We could not distract him by calling his name or by making eye contact.  He was just miserable a lot of the time and was basically only non-miserable ("happy" was a stretch) when attached to me.  We were worried.  I feared he was autistic.  We took him to the doctor.  There was nothing wrong with him.

His behavior would've been challenging with any child, even an only child, but for a twin with an older sibling, it was nearly impossible.  He spent a lot of months crying.  All the time.  It was frustrating and horrible.  And it was our way of life.

Thankfully, over the past couple of months, Leon has started to snap out of it.  (Of course, since the boys are yin and yang, this means Michael has been miserable.  One of these days they will both be happy at once.  Really!)  Learning to walk and talk has helped Leon.  A few weeks ago, Leon realize that he could communicate what he wants.  It was like a light bulb went off in his head.  I'm not sure if it started when he realized that bursting out a fake smile and begging, "Pleeeeease?" could get him a whole lot of things in life, if it was when he discovered that hitting the refrigerator and pantry often resulted in food, or if it was some other crazy combination of events, but it was clear he realized he could get what he wants.

And that has motivated him to talk.  Leon's vocabulary is expanding like crazy. 

He's so different from his siblings.  Ree waited to speak until she could basically bust out entire sentences, and even Michael won't say anything out loud until he is sure he can fully enunciate the words.  Leon just throws jibberish together any chance he gets.  Sometimes, I think he gets it right.  We are pretty sure we've caught him singing actual words/syllables to "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and the ABC song.

Half the time he startles me when he speaks.  I think he is all zoned out in his own little Leon world, and he will jump into a conversation with his own little comment.  It's like the toddler equivalent of Silent Bob moments.

The other night I was reading Michael a book on animal sounds, and the last page asks, "What does Clifford say?"  Without missing a beat, from across the room where he was throwing toys or causing some other kind of mayhem, Leon said, "Bow wow."  A couple of nights ago, I was attempting to dress Leon on his changing table after his bath, and I'm pretty sure he was trying to jump off the changing table to see if he could fly.  In an attempt to distract him long enough to wrangle on a diaper and pajamas, I started counting the dogs on a poster over the changing table.  He continued squirming, focusing on the goal of crashing into the floor.  In my counting, I stopped at eleven, but Leon then chimed in with what sounded eerily like "twelve."

Sometimes he does say words clearly though.  Last week we were having fried fish for dinner.  This was the good stuff, and Leon wanted to load up on it, so he blurted out, "More fish, please."  Granted, it sounded like "Muh fiSH peeeez," but we knew what he meant.  (And, yes, we gave him more fish since he had asked so nicely.)  On Saturday, he pointed to our brown dog and said, "Max!"  Both Max and Leon then grinned.  So Leon said it again.  At bedtime, I usually tuck the boys in one at a time, and they wave goodnight to everyone else in our family.  Michael was first to catch on to waving, and is still the only one to have moved on to grown up waving.  Michael was also the first to say, "Night night" instead of "Bye bye."  But Leon was the first to use names.  Out of nowhere, last night when telling his sis goodnight he said, "Bye, Ree."  And it was obvious what he was saying, even if the words were slurred together.

It's so nice to have Leon communicating and happy (except for when he doesn't get his way and stages a raging protest).  Now if we could just get Leon to use his words for good and not evil...