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Like everything about being a parent for the first time, watching language bloom in a child is breathtaking. Amiya, Kirsti and I have officically entered the world of baby-speak, conversing in our own patois of signs and single syllable words where context is critical. For example, ‘ba’ can mean alternately, “Baba”, “Where is Baba?”, “pacifier”, “book” and “bear”, among other things. A rotating hand can mean “table fan”, “exhaust fan” and “juice”. His favourite word amongst a burgeoning collection, however, is apple. We’re not sure from where his fascination with all things regarding apples stems, but there are few joys in Amiya’s life that compare with looking for, looking at and holding apples. We’ve even heard him talk in his sleep about apples. No, that’s not a typo. During dreams of what is most certainly Amiya gazing at a downpour of apples from an apple filled sky onto an apple covered landscape, Kirsti and I have heard him whisper his favourite word.
What is particularly fascinating to me is how babies learn to use tone to add context and meaning. Knowing nothing about linguisitics, I would expect that to be a subtle concept, but the difference between Amiya’s “Apple?” (Where is the apple?) and “Apple!” (Oh, there it is!) is as crisp as our own use of tones to specify meaning. Another wonderful experience is seeing him understand the concept of something like a fish (”A smaking of lips”) or a duck (”Duh”) which he demonstrates by identifying fishes and ducks regardless of their representation or form, from stylized bath toys to realistic pictures. It’s all just very nifty.

And so with language and scraped knees acquired through rambunctious play, our little baby has embraced his calling as a toddler, veritably waddling around our house and dancing whenever the slightest bit of music is playing. Indeed, the little baby is rapidly turning into a little boy.

Meanwhile, for those of you who don’t know, Kirsti and I are now just past the halfway point of training for the Portland Marathon. The last time that we trained for a marathon, an incipient little Mr. D prevented Kirsti from continuing to train and compete. This time Kirsti might actually get to capitalize on her training regime.