words

I was giving Martin a bath tonight. While he was splashing around, I asked him who he loves. He got a big grin on his face and said, "I love me." He noticed my amused reaction and repeated it, "Yeah, I just love me." It was one of those late 1970s, free-to-be-you-and-me moments.

While Martin brushed his teeth, I told him that I loved him, too. He seemed to both get it and not get it at the same time. He knows what the phrase "I love you" means. But his earlier efforts to be playful with the phrase posed a problem. He looked at me quizzically and asked, "Do you I too love me?" If you need to return to that phrase, it's not because you're a bad reader. It makes no sense. Martin, however, seemed unphased when I couldn't answer his question. He just kept brushing.

Martin's little sister is starting to string words together. She can say, "Where's Mart?" and "Go downstairs." I wish I could better remember Martin's verbal life at the same age. I know he said lots of single words. Our housemate at the time made a list to keep track of them. I know when Martin said zebra for the first time. But I wasn't looking out for developing sentences. I had no idea that every phrase he used was simply repeated from memory with no real sense of what the language was doing.

Martin still has many moments when language trips him up. Things that seem relatively simple - if they're new to him - can be utterly baffling. He looks up blankly even though were not speaking Chinese.

But I him too do love.