The One Where Jack Uses His Words

I thought Jack would never talk. At almost 2 years old, he had a vocabulary of roughly 5-6 words - everything else was a grunt or his multipurpose word, "oose". "Oose" started out as a stand-in for the words "cheese", "shoes", "juice", "horse", and "please". It then evolved to mean "whatever the heck I WANT it to mean, so there." All day long, this is what happened:

Jack: "Mama!"
Me: "What?"
Jack: "Oose!"
Me: "That's not a word, baby. What do you want?"
Jack: (pointing) "OOSE!!!"

Sigh.

He started speech therapy right after he turned 2, and now at almost 3, I'm happy to report that it is impossible to shut him up. The boy talks like a verbal version of a perpetual motion machine. It drives me crazy most of the time, but it has its advantages. For example, this morning while driving him to school. The boy LOVES school. In face, one of his first complete sentences was, "School bus! I go school!" We started him out at a church preschool going 3 days a week, but switched him to 5 days a week after the first month. Non-school days consisted of "Mama, I go school today?" x10292374.

"I go school, Mama?" 

I had only had one cup of coffee before leaving the house this morning, which translates to "don't talk to me yet, I'm not capable of forming coherent sandwiches." This doesn't deter Jack in the slightest, of course - but he talks so much that I'm not required to respond much anymore. This is what I had the pleasure of listening to on the way to school this morning.

"We going to school, Mama? Where Daddy go? Daddy go to work? Oh, yes - Daddy goed to work today. We see him after school. We going to Grandma's house? Oh! There Nana's house! We not go Nana's house. We going to school. MAMA! It's FOGGY outside! We not able see very well!" (I reassured him that I could see just fine.) "Oh, yes." (Wesley chimed in with "Oh, YEAH!" this being his latest favorite phrase. Back to Jack.)

 "Mama, I going take off my seatbelt. I want unbuckle the buckles." (No, Jack, you can't do that. The police will come fuss at us, it's the law and it's not safe to take it off.) "Oh! Yes, Mama." ("Oh, YEAH!") "I wear my seatbelt, den the police not come fuss at us. Mama, you wear your seatbelt so we be safe. Wesley, you wearing you seatbelt? Don't unbuckle it. Mama, our car going crash?" (I assume this was coming from the idea of "safety" since I was doing a dignified 40.) "We wear our seatbelts and be safe. Police come fuss at us if we crash?" (No, if we crash it would be an accident and they would come help us.) "Oh! Yes, Mama." ("Oh, YEAH!") "But they fuss at us if we not wear our seatbelts! Oh! Mama! You going catch that school bus? We follow it to school? I not ride school bus. Mama, I miss our house. I be sad, I miss our house. You and Wesley and baby James going back our house? I go back our house after school. Baby James likes taking me to school, he wants go to school. Wesley not like it." (This was probably an accurate observation since James was giggling to himself in his seat, but Wesley looks like the Angry Bluebird in the mornings.) "Mama, you come back and pick me up after school. Oh! There school! I all ready, go to school now. There Miss Amanda!! Hi, Miss Amanda! I need my backpack, Mama. Oh, there my backpack. I put it on."

Then he runs into the building without a backwards glance, just like every day since the very first day of school. All those words, and not even a "Bye, Mama!" when I leave. The ride back home was blessedly quiet, but much less interesting.

That boy drives me nuts sometimes, but I wouldn't trade his chatter for anything. Well, maybe that's not 100% true. Some days I might trade it for some more coffee.