As children are accumulating vocabulary, they say all sorts of interesting, hysterical, embarrassing, and lovely things.
I was afraid to teach Jax words like "shirt" or "truck", just in case they came out sounding wrong. ("Shirt" mispronunciation has turned out to be inevitable. I just ignore it. He will learn the correct way to pronounce long before he learns the incorrect way has an alternate meaning. "Truck" has been okay. It is "twuck.").
I've been thoughtful that he will translate words from one scenario to another. Unfortunately, others in my life haven't had the same forethought.
For example, when he was suddenly afraid of the sound of the airplanes flying over our home (which happens countless times a day in this military city), my Tita taught him to say, "Go away! Go away airplane!" as a defense mechanism. It worked temporarily, and since he had something forceful to tell the airplane, he seemed slightly less intimidated by them. Sometimes. Other times he still cried for me. The downside is he naturally started telling people like me and his Daddy to "go away" when we were doing something he didn't like. I finally convinced my Tita to stop saying those words around him, because it is so hurtful and ugly for me to be told "go away", even when I know he is little and can't comprehend the fullness of meaning.
For a little while, he had started yelling loudly, exciting words he learned from other children, like "NO!" and "MINE!". I would respond by yelling loudly, "JESUS!" Now I periodically hear him across the house or in the car randomly shouting "JESUS!" for no particular reason.
A few things that happened recently that were too sweet to forget....
In the car. He asks for music. I turn on the radio to the Christian station. (Which is the only thing I will listen to now that he started repeating lyrics like "Carry me, carry me" (a current over-played Christian song) or "Speak life, speak life" (another over-played Christian song).)
On this particular day, the song that came on, I recognized, and started singing along.
"Mommy?"
"Yes, Jax, Mommy's here."
"Singing?"
"Yes, Mommy's singing."
"Mommy singing?"
"Mommy is singing."
"Jesus."
(me: teary eyes)
"Yes, Mommy is singing to Jesus."
(He proceeds to sweetly sing the name of Jesus over and over).
(I melt).
We are in the grocery store. I am wearing him in a wrap on my back. He wraps his arms around my shoulders and says, "Hug."
"Aww, hug, thank you Jax, I love hugs!"
"I wuv ooh", clear as a bell, the first time he has ever said it.
(Of all the many, many, many words and phrases he knows, I've been wondering why this one has not yet entered his vocabulary, when we say it to him so many times a day.)
"I love you too, Jax!"
"I wuv ooh!" again...
(Then we repeat back and forth several times while I try not to start bawling in the grocery store).
When I put him to bed that night, it is one of the times I always say it to him several times before and after putting him down in his crib. He repeated it again that same day, copying my gentle, sweet tone of voice.
Ah, words a mama loves to hear.
He hasn't said "I love you" since that day though.
Kind of like our chickens who laid four eggs in October then haven't laid a single one since. Dear chickens: by January, your lives will be in danger. Consider my encouragement to begin laying eggs.
