SU-uh-da - Posted by Chris

Listening to your child learn to speak has to be one of the greatest thrills of parenthood. It ranks right up there with watching him first learn to walk. Words can not describe the joy in discovering that your toddler can (almost) communicate with the world.

Christopher’s speech is growing in leaps and bounds. One big improvement is that he is now trying to repeat words even if he’s unsure of how to pronounce them. Until recently, he only had a few words and wouldn’t try anything new.

While Christopher is learning to speak, Lisa and I are learning how to understand what he is saying. If you are a parent or even if you’ve watched small children communicate with their parents, you’ll understand that there is a language that is unique between parent and child. I used to be amazed at how my sister would instantly understand what my niece or nephew was saying while their words were foreign to me. Now I understand.

Tonight while reading bedtime stories, I asked Christopher what book he wanted me to read. He replied, “SU-uh-da.” I was a bit confused at first, but with Lisa’s help we discovered that he was saying “Super Grover” (Grover’s superhero personality on Sesame Street). We don’t have any books about Super Grover though we do have some with regular Grover. As I read the Sesame Street book, Christopher pointed out every time he found “Su-uh-da” on the page. He was happy because he was able to tell us what he wanted and we were happy because our little boy is learning to talk.

As Lisa laid him in his crib, Christopher rolled to his side and repeated “SU-uh-da, SU-uh-da” to himself over and over while she descended the stairs.