dinner

My daughter is 19-months-old. She can say many words, but there are, of course, many more that she can't say yet. So when she wants something, it is often the case that she doesn't know the word for it. Facing the verbal void, she simply makes noise. Usually, this noise is pretty annoying.

Martin, too, struggles to tell us what he wants. Sometimes, he doesn't know the right words. Other times, he can't manage to put them all together in the right way. When he wants something and can't say it, he also simply makes noise. As with his little sister, it's pretty annoying.

I'm more than ready for people in my household to start speaking English. I might sound like an impatient jerk, but how many evenings can you eat dinner, trying to decipher if a grunt means "I'd like a 4th helping of spaghetti" or if the yelp means "Please, God, more peaches"? I'm in the midst of a five-and-a-half-year stretch where meals are more often pain than nourishment.

I know, I know. We don't face half the struggles that some families on the spectrum do. Martin has made a ton of progress. Nevertheless, I'd like to eat dinner in peace some evening. I'd love to sit, eat, and chat with my family. We're nowhere near that beatific vision. Right now, I feel like it'll never come.