The Amazing Talking Rollie

Rollie, I don't know why i ever worried that you might have speech problems. You hit two years old in August and now you are wowing us with your conversational skills. You are so much fun to watch, as you try out the feel of different sounds on your tongue. It doesn't matter what you are saying, just that you are constantly chattering now. When you are mad are upset, you deteriorate into some freakish language of your own, where the main words are those words you know best: You cry out from your bedroom with the "Mama, Dada, nilk, meow, meow, meow" as if the cats can save you from the dark. Todd and I lay in bed and shake with laughter at the creativity of your plaintive calls.

These days, you have learned that "Yes" and "no" are answers, and that "why" causes Mama to make an exasperated (and evidently funny) face. You have no idea what "Why" means, but it has become an important weapon in the "I'm not ready for my bath" arsenal.

Your knowledge of numbers and letters must have existed long before you could say them, because just in the last week, you can kind of count to ten (you still let us say "one" first, and then you say "two," and if we point out the rest of the numbers in order to ten, you can do "three," "pour," "pive," and "tix.' You have trouble with seven, but you know "eight," "nein," (and yes, it sounds like German when you say it), and "ten."

On the subject of the Alphabet, you don't know it yet, but you know that letters have sounds associated with them, and when you see a letter, you will throw out every sound you can think of trying to get the right one. And if we say the sound for you, you mimic it right back to us.

And this morning, you and Daddy had the most interesting exchange: You had out your markers and were "dying" (your word, which can be a little disconcerting sometimes, for drawing). You handed a marker to Daddy and instructed him to "die." He said, "what do you want me to draw?" and you proceeded to request the following: "E," "nein," "2," "boof" (dog), "meow" (cat), and "ballball" (football). It was fascinating, just like everything about how your little mind is developing these days.

I love watching you gradually grow into a new person every day.