Born to talk

I left our one-year-old next-door for a few minutes, and when I got back, Baby Wendy was speaking her first word: "Kgaa!" She was pointing at the neighbors' cat and shouting: "Kgaa! Kgaa!" as plain as day.

This was the breakthrough I'd been waiting for. Granted, once a child attains the full powers of speech, she is capable of whining, tattling, complaining, squabbling, questioning parental authority, broadcasting family secrets, and, worst of all, retelling the plots of movies or TV shows.

Nevertheless, to my discredit, I can get only just so excited about babies. No matter how cute they are, I tend to regard them as troublesome pets that belong to my wife. Although I'm dutiful about their care and feeding, it isn't until they learn to speak that they come across as fully human and my fatherly feelings become properly engaged. With two older kids who are avid talkers, I often have more conversation than I need, but I'm eager to find out what little Wendy will have to say. She babbles and chatters and makes a variety of comedic mouth noises. When she feels thwarted or ignored, she gets down on hands and knees and bangs her head against the floor. A sure attention-getter, it works best in the kitchen where linoleum over plywood produces a resounding boom! boom! boom! Plainly, Wendy has a lot to tell us.

The difficulty will be in finding enough silence for her to talk into. I haven't noticed much dead air for her to enliven.

This had been such a problem when our second child Sally was learning to talk, that she developed a stammer that served as a sort of placeholder until she could turn her thoughts into words. But it was a technique that she couldn't control.

"Give-give-give -" she'd say and her little face would screw up into a heartbreaking grimace as she fought to get past the first syllable "-give-give me a piggyback ride."

Her problem was at its worst when she was two and her big sister Marie was starting kindergarten. I consulted the school's speech teacher who predicted Sally would get over it as long as no one made her self-conscious about her speech. Any undue pressure could lock-in the stammer for life. The theory that Sally was reserving a place in a conversation could be correct, she said.

Her advice worked; in a few months Sally was speaking beautifully. We even developed a little game in which I would say a long word and Sally would repeat it with cheerful precision.

When we were in Marie's school for the pupils' winter concert, I saw Mrs. Waters, the speech teacher, in the corridor. Eager to show her how well Sally was doing, I picked the child up and thrust her at the specialist, saying, "Listen to this:" and I enunciated one of our word-game favorites, "Chippewa."

Silence from Sally, who had chosen not to perform, the way Mr. Ed used to do around his owner's wife.

"Min-ne-so-ta," I said, a little urgently.

More silence from Sally and a blank expression that could be interpreted in any number of ways. Mrs. Waters demanded, "What are you DOING to her?!"

I hurried to explain that I was just trying to show that the stammer was long gone, and Mrs. Waters' look softened to mere suspicion.

Now, at age four, it's hard to believe Sally ever had trouble either speaking or getting the floor. She plunges in and out of conversations with the ease and impudence of Peter Rabbit infiltrating Mr. MacGregor's lettuce patch.

Ironically, now it is big sister Marie who has the problem. At age eight, Marie has a tendency to start talking half-dreamily before her thoughts have been properly assembled. Like an inept parade marshal, she sends her words marching out in twos or threes while waiting for the others to happen along. It is hard for anyone to focus on what Marie is saying, and to Sally each pause is an invitation to start talking-as if she needed any.

When she is not pre-empting her sister, Sally further plagues Marie with the glib and flashy way she enchants relatives, family friends, and total strangers. Whenever she's near a likely listener, she'll dispense a volley of her wacky non-sequiturs, like bright yellow bananas thrown from a tree by a friendly monkey. She'll say: "My name is Sally, but my dad calls me Sparky. Do you like marshmallows? What does a frog drink? Croak-a cola! Do you know how to make purple? Mix pink and blue..."

Marie will stand by quietly and grit her teeth bravely, interrupting only when Sally steals material from her. Sally, who regards herself as a comedian with Marie as her writer, prattles, "Our baby eats sand and grass and stones; I think she'd eat the whole world…"

"Hey!" Marie will shout. "She's copying what I said!" And, if conditions permit, she'll add that, besides plagiarizing her big sister, Sally also licks the icing off a piece of cake and leaves the rest, wears her sister's underwear without authorization, and does other things indicative of low character. While Marie ticks off these hard truths, Sally smiles or chuckles gnomishly, willing to keep quiet only as long as the conversation is about her.

Except for when the kids' chitchat degenerates into ugly bickering, I love their conversation and welcome the insight it affords into their lives and personalities.

And now Baby Wendy is about to let us know what's on her mind. I'd probably be smart to make the most of my few chances to talk before the third chatterbox comes online. I suspect that her speaking time will be carved out of my tiny share, and the only way I'll be able to get the floor will be by banging my head against it.