TALK TALK TALK
The King has now reached the stage of full-fledged talking
(accompanied with screaming, hollering, shrieking…and anything in between). Granted a lot of
is still in his very humorous slightly garbled Sean Connery way, but he fully gets
his point across when the situation demands it (which is every single moment of course). The problem is, as many parents
have warned me, once they start talking they simply do NOT stop. This incessant
chatter starts at daybreak and continues on for 12 hours until he goes to bed, and by the end of the
day one’s brain feels like one has been trapped in a small room with someone
who has amplified - and hideously repetitive - Tourette’s.
It’s not just the word capacity that astonishes me – it is
amazing how you won’t even remember saying something until they repeat it back
to you – it’s the pace in which he can keep it up. Within a two-minute period
the King can ask, demand, enquire, insist and protest without taking a single
breath. It goes something like this, ‘Mamma sit, mamma where’s truck, mama elephant sleeping,
mama see you, Dada sleeping mama, mama come, choo-choo train, mama help you, oh
no truck, oh no mama broken, mamma dinner, dinner cracker raisins, dinner water
Gemma (his favorite teacher), mama outside, see you later mama, mamma scooter outside now, sand
dumptruck mama, McQueen now mama (oh Cars how I dread I introduced
you), mamma Mater, mamma sit, sit sit, mamma no jacket no jacket, no bath mama,
Dada outside!!!!’ You get the idea.
The King is also big on asking where things are. It’s
clearly a game he enjoys playing where he asks where everything is even when
he’s holding it, it’s stuck on his body, i.e. his toes, or right in front of
his little face. Clearly it’s the man gene (yes I see my future, and in it, I’m
still finding things for the men in my life). Then there is the conversation he
likes to engage in where we go through the names of everyone he knows and run
through every activity he’s done in the last month as he is clearly keeping a
mental journal of his life experiences. [A toddler’s memory is insane and can
make one feel very old; in fact, I plan on filling in the King on things I need
to remember so he can repeat them back to me. “Mama, we need milk and you need
to go to the post office!”] The King will also happily remind you that on such
a such corner three weeks prior we saw a black cat and he was sleeping. Then
each and every time you pass a restaurant he will remind me with whom we ate and
then proclaim that we eat dinner that very second, and yes, usually it’s around
10 in the morning.
There are also the periods of time where he asks for
everything and then just as you give it to him he looks at you and says NO
Mamma. I’m realizing he is developing the gene we all seem to have where we
enjoy controlling others. Of course insomnia means my reactions are slower and
it has taken me awhile to stop bringing him things (imagine a zombie on
autopilot) so as not to expend extra energy that is well needed elsewhere.
The only solution I’ve found to carve out a moment of
silence here or there is to teach the King to take deep breaths. It’s pretty
damn hysterical really. We sit, look at one another and then take a long deep
breath (I’ve also taught him a few yoga moves and I’m telling you, the King can
do a mean plank). And for a few seconds, there is silence; which the King
usually follows up with a loud scream and a shower of spittle spray from his lips just
to remind me who’s in control of the situation.
Happy Monday all.