Morning with Dylan

Dylan woke up before all the others today, which meant I got to enjoy some one-on-one conversations with him while I mixed up the morning's muffins.

Conversations with my other going-on-four year olds never seemed particularly notable.  But as I considered that at this time last year I was still very concerned about whether Dylan would ever really talk, I always find myself grateful for every word.

Words like "Spongebob," "Patrick," "Gary," and definitely for cute words like "Squidward."

Complete sentences like, "You stir it fast, and I stir it slowly?"

Logical thought progressions such as, "My brothers are sleeping?  We really should wake them up."

Especially for proclamations like the one just shouted at me in passing: "I'M GOING PEE, MOM!" as he heads independently to use the toilet.

His vocabulary is huge, considering he's only spoken for a year.  My favorite is observing as he adds a new word to the pile.  He heard the word "nervous" in context when a friend asked her small son if the fireworks made him nervous.  It was almost like you see him turning the word over on his palette before trying it out himself.  It wasn't long before he proclaimed himself to be nervous as the biggest of the fireworks flew into the sky.

Another of his/my favorites is "frustrated."  I am frequently accused of having a negative influence on his mood.  "That makes me sad," he'll say when I tell him not to do something.  That one drives me crazy.  But I think he saves, "That makes me frustrated," for the times when he knows a bit of cuteness will go a long way.

He's still not one to speak in a crowd or to answer a direct question (example: "How old are you?"), and his diction is still catching up to his vocabulary.  But if there's a lazy moment of silence - such as a muffin-mixing morning - his soft spoken voice will fill it.  And in a house where most of the time I just want people to stop talking, I love it every time he starts.