The Trixie Update

I hate not having the time to jot down the little bits and pieces of the day that are made special by some small action on Trixie’s part. As every parent knows, there are a million things your child does for the first time. These are disposable moments. They light a spark in my mind when they happen; a few weeks later I don’t remember them. I don’t even remember what I’ve forgotten.

Last week we were driving to school with the kitten to share for a pet-themed show-and-tell. Trixie was holding Miss Cutie Pie in the back, playing with her. Then she told me that “Miss Cutie Pie’s eyes are like… little pieces of chocolate”. That stood out because it was the first time I ever heard her use a simile. And — I confirmed it with Jennifer later — she made it up by herself. The cat has cute eyes, but we’ve never compared them to chocolate. I like that. I like see little glimpses of how her brain works, and I didn’t want to forget it.

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A couple of days ago Trixie wanted to get something out of the car. That’s fine, I said, But I’m going to help you with the door. She asked why. I informed her she couldn’t do it by herself until she was bigger.

“Bigger? Like a grownup?”

“No, just a little bigger.”

“Like a college kid?”

“No, just a little bigger.”

“Like a taller girl? Or a taller boy? Like one of those??”

One of those? I don’t what Trixie is talking about, but it’s scary. One of those taller girls or boys? I’m picturing freaks. Eight, nine-foot tall freaks loping around the neighborhood searching for unlocked car doors to slam.

I look over my shoulder now when unloading groceries.

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I haven’t documented Trixie’s language skills in so long that it’s pointless to even try to compare what she can do now to the primitive babbling of one year ago.

Her language evolution is relentless, yet so absolutely incremental that I have no idea how we arrived at the current point in time. One year ago it was simple object identification. Today it’s an assemblage of thoughts, feelings, observations, consideration of consequences and mimicry.

As a parent, it makes me proud. As a human, it completely blows my mind. Being able to witness firsthand how our species develops is probably the most amazing thing I will ever do with my life. The fact that I’m about the 100 billionth person to do it doesn’t diminish it for me at all. In fact, it just reaffirms how the experience is so universal.

The event that made the biggest impression was the first time she imparted knowledge to me. I do not remember what the knowledge was, or when it took place. It’s a shame. I was busy at the time - not writing - and you don’t always know what’s going to make an impression on you. But it was sometime around 6-9 months ago.

Prior to that point, you could communicate with Trixie, but the majority of the conversation was reaffirming things: “Are you hungry?”, “Do you want some juice?”, “You want Mommy to take you potty, right?”

In other words, it wasn’t anything I didn’t already know. At one point though, a question was asked out loud, maybe not even directly to Trixie, and she provided an answer that shared her knowledge.

It might have been something as simple as, “Where in the world is the TV controller?” But the answer to that inconsequential question was the first time Trixie ever educated me, with words and knowledge. It’s a striking realization, because you quickly understand how each generation eventually takes the reigns from the previous. Not in a depressing way, but more of a cycle of life that makes you appreciate being a part of something.

Anyway, that’s a little too heavy to think about when taking care of toddler. For the most part talking with Trixie is pure joy because you can actually communicate in interesting and unpredictable ways. Plus tantrums aside, she doesn’t let you get too stressed out about things. Her favorite thing to say when things go wrong is, “Wellll… that’s ok”.

“Trixie, there’s juice all over the floor!!”
“Trixie, you were supposed to be asleep TWO hours ago!!”
“Ah crap, we’re out of beer.”

The next important milestone will be when she can take care of that last problem. Then I’ll be really impressed.

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This morning I was prodding Trixie to stop playing with her markers and hurry up and put her shoes on, when she gave me an offhanded “Justa minnnet”.

I was like, what the hell? Where did you learn that? The answer, of course, is from everyone, everywhere. And unless the phrase or word is extremely specific, it’s next to impossible to pin down exactly where or at what point she picked up a particular piece of language.

This process is absolutely amazing to watch. And it’s actually one of those things that you do notice despite the fact that the change is incremental. It’s not like watching hair grow. You can see enormous advances over a single weekend as she acquires a new word, associates it with an object or action and then assembles it into a clunky, stilted verbal expression of what’s going on in her head.

Case in point: we beg her to go back to bed when she wakes up before 7am. A couple of days ago, she turned the tables on us. When I helped her back into her bed at 6:30 in the morning, she turned and pointed at me, “Go ta bed. Daddy. Now.” She knows that I badly want to go back to bed, but her articulation of that knowledge is so raw and straightforward that you can’t help but think that her brain is using brute force to string the words together in any way possible to get the point across.

She’s also learning new words at a record pace. On a whim I taught her the word “issues”. And I taught her to go poke at Mommy while chanting it. I stand at a safe distance and deny everything. She’s my secret language weapon and can never be turned against me. She’s going to be a hit at parties.

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We started talking about family relationships with Trixie recently. Nothing too heavy, just the concept that Jenn and I have mommies and daddies too. For some reason, it’s a difficult concept for Trixie to grasp. It’s actually more than just difficult — it’s next to impossible. It appears to fundamentally violate her worldview.

My mother’s name is Becky. Trixie knows her as BeckBeck. When I tell Trixie that BeckBeck is my mommy, her brow crumples, and her eyes get wide and she violently shakes her head back and forth in protest, screaming, “Nooo NOOOOOO!”

“Yes Trixie. BeckBeck is my mommy.”

Trixie: “No! That’s not true! That’s IMPOSSIBLE!”

“Search your feelings. You know it to be true.”

“NOOO Nooooooo!”

Trixie then crumples to the ground whimpering and I resolve not tell her again for at least a day. Or maybe just until after her nap.

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Trixie has been babbling so much lately that it’s easy to forgot that she has none of our shared verbal cultural history. You discover her earnest shortcomings on a fairly regular basis when you just slip into casual conversation. The latest incident was my attempt to tell Trixie a joke:

I say, “Knock, knock.”

Trixie’s got nothing.

“Trixie, say ‘who’s there?’, Ok? I’ll do it again.”

“Knock, knock”

Still nothing.

I fill in for her. ” Knock, knock. Who’s there?”

Trixie has plenty to say about that:
“MOMMY! MOMMMMMMY!!!”

Trixie will run around screaming Mommy for five minutes. That’s the sign of a very good joke. And it’s flexible. If Jenn is the one telling it, the punchline switches to “DADDY!” If you like edgier humor, the punchline is also sometimes “JUICE!” Need to clean it up because you’re telling the joke in front of the grandparents? Try “ELMO!” The only thing you can’t do with this joke it get to the real punchline. But that’s ok, she doesn’t really care about oranges and bananas anyway*.

*Orange you glad you’re not a banana.

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I’m sure everyone has noticed the lack of new stories. I’m having a hard time juggling all things Trixie — the child, the blog, the software — and since Trixie can’t be left to her own devices, the Trixie Update has. This isn’t permanent. I hope to get more stories up soon, but there might be a couple more dry weeks as I deal with www.trixietracker.com.

For sure Trixie is doing plenty of entertaining things. Language is the primary distraction. She’s babbling worlds. Words like Moh!! (No) Buckshul!! (Buckle) and Heussse (Juice). We have conversations now: “Trixie, what did you have for lunch?” “BAY-BEES!!” “What do you want for dinner?” “Katttzz!”

The TPODs aren’t going anywhere. I’ll still have a new one up five days a week. They should be good ones, especially now that Trixie is helping out with the images.

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I don’t know whether it was the socialization and daily exposure to other talking children in daycare or if it just happened to coincide with her natural pace of development, but Trixie vocalizes all the time now.

We’re relieved. When Trixie turned one year old without talking we were a little worried. But over the past 7 months, our concerns about her language skills diminished because she’s doing most of the other stuff she’s supposed to, and, well, life goes on. Even though it’s not ‘normal’ for her to talk so late, there are plenty of anecdotal accounts about how so-and-so’s child didn’t talk until he was 11, and he turned out fine. He’s down at the docks, go ask him yourself.

In the meantime, we’re enjoying a daily barrage of words like “dog”, “woof”, “bat” (courtesy Sesame Street’s the Count) and her all time favorite, “baby.” Trixie loves babies to no end, and there’s no end to the number of times she’ll chant “Bay BEE!” over and over again while wildly rocking her arms back and forth.

However, the most interesting development happened yesterday when I realized Trixie was identifying herself for the first time. She doesn’t grab hold of her name the way she does the word baby, and drive it into the ground. It’s a more cautious, quiet embrace of the word, as if she’s pretty sure she’s Trixie — but not totally 100% sure.

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In a word, No. A lot of readers have recently asked about whether Trixie is finally talking. I’ve been hesitant to address the issue because there’s not much to write about and I’ve had my head in the sand. She just doesn’t do it, beyond the occasional Ma-ma and Da-da.

Words aside, Trixie is pretty vocal. She does a lot of moaning and mmm’ing when eating because she likes her food. Jenn and I don’t even hear it anymore, but apparently it’s pretty loud. We rediscover this every time we eat with other people. There’s always this moment where I look up and see that everyone has stopped eating and is staring at Trixie in slack-jawed disbelief. Some parents are embarrassed by this sort of thing — I look at it as taking the pressure off me. As long as Trixie is around, no one is going to walk away from dinner commenting on my dining habits.

Aside from mealtime mmm’ing, there’s plenty of humming that moves up and down in pitch, frequent sing-song la-la-la/ba-ba-ba, ecstatic screeching and the perennial favorite, ballistic screaming and yelling.

However, none of these verbalizations really translate into actual words. I’ve gotten to the point, I think, that I just don’t care anymore. We’ve worried enough about it for months, and the axiom that every child develops at her own pace is pretty comforting.

One reason not to worry is that there’s nothing wrong with her cognitive skills. She understands plenty, and has readily followed directions for months and months. We can ask her to go get her shoes if we’re going out, or to go dump some empty bottles in the recycling bin. Most recently, we can tell her to go get something to drink if she’s thirsty and she is able to go open the fridge and get out her milk or juice cup (depending on preference) which is now kept on the bottom shelf.

Many readers have suggested sign language as a way to bridge the language gap. We’ve tried. It took her forever to decide to even wave “hi” and “bye”. The only other thing she’s picked up is from a kids show where one of the characters celebrates Autumn by acting like a tree with out-stretched arms. This she can do. Trixie can sign “tree” no problem. “Trixie, tree!” Boom, arms go up. Also if she sees a tree, or we point out a tree, arms go up. This proves valuable in situations where Trixie needs to warn us that a tree is about to fall, or if she wants to climb a tree or if the squirrels are in the tree again.

I’m sure she’ll talk when she’s ready. As stated, I’m trying not to worry about it, but it doesn’t always work out. Today it caught up with me in a pet store while searching for kittens. Instead we got a giant parrot who kept loudly mocking us, “Hello!? How are you? Hello!” I wasn’t amused. We’re not going back until Trixie can bury that bird under an avalanche of profanity.

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