Chatterbox

One thing none of the parenting books seems to have prepared me for is how much sheer talking happens in the course of a day spent with a toddler. Sava is undergoing what, according to those same books, is the typical verbal explosion of the second half of the second year. Lately, I feel pooped at the end of every day, less from the physical effort of looking out for his safety and making sure he is fed than from the continuous back and forth which communication with him entails. He wants to know everything and, when he says something, he expects me to say it back to him in order to make sure that I understand him. When he speaks clearly, it's a parroting exercise that I can repeat half-mechanically while doing something else; but since much of the time he says things that, but for context, might be incomprehensible, I have to pay attention and respond with enthusiastic approval and gentle encouragement. He does not mind my corrections of his pronunciation at all, and often will continue to repeat the word until, to his ear at least, it sounds correct. With few notable exceptions (our favorite being "gibizina" for "magazin," which we are loath to discourage because it sounds so improbably darn cute), he's made amazing progress in the last month alone. He repeats everything he hears and has a peculiar talent for picking out bad words from our conversations with each other. If a twelve-word sentence includes the word "shit," he'll pick that one out and repeat it for as long as we continue laughing; needless to say, laughter is easy to come by on those occasions. He shows equal enthusiasm for Bulgarian and English, and when we are in English-speaking company will repeat anything he hears without any idea of what it means. Perhaps because people act amused and surprised whenever he does that, and he is a sucker for positive attention despite faking shyness, he just does more and more of it each day.