I can see now how parents get blindsided by their kids coming up to them at a tender young age and blurting out some naughty word or other inappropriate speech. The thing is, you spend the first couple years of a child’s life trying everything you can to get them to interact with you. Our poor Ava was under constant pressure to smile or laugh or sit up or roll over or grab our fingers. Sometimes she’d react, but most of the time she’d lie or, later, stand there and stare blankly at us.
But she got smart very quickly. Or, if not “smart,” at least figured out what kinds of responses we were asking for and offered them up on command. That was the beginning. The last couple weeks she’s started to do a lot more of her own creation independent of our prodding. She’ll sit at the dinner table to go on and on about what she did at school that day, or she’ll pick up her stuffed monkey Butterfly and console her in the same way we console Ava when she’s hurt. She absorbs everything, and it’s easy to forget sometimes that she’s there.
The real lesson for a parent, though, is to realize, to really understand, that you’re the one who’s shaping this little person. They see you open a bottle, and that’s how they’ll open a bottle. Hear you console someone, and that’s how they’ll console someone. See you be impatient or grumpy, they’ll follow suit. (Lick a snozzberry, tastes like a snozzberry; sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
So far, the best part of all this mimicry are those times when Ava crawls up on my lap, looks me in the eyes, and says, “I love you, big guy.” Then she gives me a hug and a kiss. I don’t know where she gets the “big guy” thing; as I said, she’s started improvising in earnest lately.