Journal: News & Comment

Talkative

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Every parent should resist the urge to see our kids as extraordinary—each child has talents and develops some skills earlier than others, but most of them average out. A child who can read early might not have good balance, or one who learns how to use the bathroom by himself at 18 months might still want a soother three years later.

My oldest daughter is nearly six, and is in the middle of the pack in most respects. She has, however, always been very verbal. While most kids make up words as they learn to speak, the ones she creates are often remarkably useful.

For instance, let's talk about butter. What do you call the blob of butter restaurants often put on pancakes? It's not a pat, because that's traditionally smaller and square. My daughter calls it a blump, and so asks for "toast with a blump of jam," to tell me that she doesn't want the jam spread on the bread (she likes to do it herself).

This morning, she looked at the butter dish and asked me what it was called. I told her, and she replied, "Well, I call it a plattress." Both blump and plattress could have been in dictionaries in some alternate universe.

She is also strangely adamant that the letter C should only make a "sss" sound, not a "k" sound, and has her own little symbol—a C in a circle with an X across it—to indicate that. She'll probably have a long campaign ahead in her life if she wants to enforce her rule, though.

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