Irregular verbs

"Guys, can I have some milK?" Isaac asked as he wandered into our room this morning. More and more, he's taking on our colloquialisms. He's a fierce mimic too; I can hear the sounds of the playground when he comes home in the afternoon. "isaac, it's time for your bath," I'll say innocently. "NoooOOOOOOooooo," he'll whine, and I'll wonder where the characteristic down-up-down of the childish whine originated. Is it universal? Do kids in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Finland, Japan whine like that?  

It's all good, but oh the limit-testing.  We were lucky early on that Isaac reserved his most engaged self for us; seems that comes with a large side order of opposition too. And now he's overtly trying to game us; after some particularly unlovely behavior this morning, he tried to grin himself out of an apology. Later, J. reminded me how developmentally "good" this is, and he was right. 

We're also a little flummoxed by the way he's learning language. In some ways we can see him applying the linguistic rules he's learned: "I bringed my car outside," he proudly announced to J. this morning, and there was a brief discussion of irregular verbs. "It doesn't make any sense," J. said, "but that's how it works." 

And that's our lesson for today: there's a lot that doesn't make any sense, or has its own peculiar logic, and maybe, if we're lucky, will be revealed one day.

Comments

[drama mama]

Good. All good.

Glad he's feeling better.

[Niksmom]

"It doesn't make any sense, but that's how it works." That ought to be on a t-shirt! It so aptly describes much of life with Nik as well.

Glad he's feeling better, too. xo