Grandma cough. Mama cough. Dada cough.

Wilbur put nouns and a verb together.  I don’t know if it is his first sentence but it is the first I heard.  

It was Wilbur on FaceTime last week, on a Friday when I had planned to spend the day with him and his mother, but they are all sick from something that Justin brought home after a work trip. I didn’t need to catch it and so, I stayed home and got to spend some phone time with the precious boy.  

And heard him practice a new acquisition. 

I said, “grandma coughs” and I faked coughed.  And he did the same and then laughed. And I laughed.  We were both so pleased with ourselves. And I could imagine a dozen reasons for that laugh.

Laughed because he was so proud of himself.
Laughed because of this power of communication.
Laughed because we did it on the phone.
Laughed because he recognized grandma and I recognized Wilbur.
Laughed because coughing is kinda’ funny, especially when it is not real.
Laughed because it is great that grandma can put nouns and verbs together.
Laughed because grandma can do what he does.

What a pleasure, how exciting, complete amazement to watch this unfolding.  To compare this growing as the opening of a flower is no cliche. No one is constantly teaching, so many new behaviors appear as if they are all hard wired in. All his parents and beloved ones have to do it provide time and space and attention—from turning over, to sitting, to crawling, to putting blocks into holes, to standing, to listening to books, to having favorite books, to pulling up and moving around a room, to holding onto grownup fingers to walk, to understandable words—so much of what he says we cannot understand.  Yet. To naming—mama and dada are constants but to grandma and Mimi and Pop Pop, to walking alone, to knocking down towers of cups, to begin shy and listening at the library. And now to sentences.

What comes next?  Adjectives?  Adverbs? Direct Objects? Or pronouns?  I can be patient with this exotic rose.  As someone who tinkers with nouns and verbs all the time, can you blame me for being so excited?