202*

Here's my 202nd post on this blog. This was supposed to be a celebrated 200th, but two posts stole their way before it and I couldn't say no to them.

It's been almost 5 years since my first post on this blog, a time which is nearly a fifth of my life. I no longer have the 'eyes of a child', but I'll let the URL remain.

I want to talk about the last year, which I've spent almost exclusively with my little nephew, who grew from being a one year old to two years old during that time. Nobody is a stranger to the pleasures of seeing a child grow. But I want to write about something which was a special pleasure to me - watching him develop language.

I remember when he hardly spoke an year back. His communication largely involved crying, laughing, and facial expressions. When we adults talked, I saw him watching our hands instead of our faces, because our hands did most of the moving. I wondered if he thought the sound was coming from our hands. Then, I watched him learning sounds. One of the first sounds I remember is, when he would point toward something he wanted to go to, and say - tdo, dto, a sort of combination of do and to.

There was a long phase, where he would look intently at our lips when we spoke, to repeat the sounds himself. When I told him the word for something, he would look toward the thing, and immediately look at my mouth, and try repeating it. For a long time he referred to things with single sounds - a ball a boy, the sky ki, the moon moo and so on.

It was hard at first to know how to teach him more than that. He took his time, and then, within a few months, he came to an age where he started surprising me with the speed at which he was learning. In a span of about six months, he went from sounds to words to simple sentences to complex sentences. When I'd stop him from touching something, he would say - "Not ours", I hadn't expected that, I couldn't believe he had taken that leap so soon. He would point his little finger toward a thing and go "Gothere, gothere, gothere." It was amazing. I couldn't refuse anywhere.

When he started recognizing things by names, it was an explosion of vocabulary. I can hardly say we taught him anything. He was probably just waiting for the right time. Within a few weeks he went from knowing about ten things by name, to hundreds. Oter-menon (Watermelon) was the most heartwarming. Probably his first long combination word.

"Thank You" was easy, "Sorry" a little difficult, and "sokay" (It's ok) was just surprising. He would say it to himself while crying, trying to pacify himself.
Once when asked what he was doing while he was crying, he managed to say between sobs - "kying".

And then came the poems - "Hawa wanda watu are" (How I wonder what you are), Yankee Doodee yent to town, Wheeso bus (Wheels on the bus). It felt great when he started playing with language. He soon saw the humor in "We'll see wheel." And in the sound of the word "Yellow". It's a tongue twister, believe me. Once on the terrace, without my prompting, he looked at the stars and said - "See, see, tars." And after a short pause, still looking at them - "Hawa wanda watu are". You can imagine my heart at this his first literary allusion.

I'm constantly amazed at how much he enjoys it. During intense moments, such as a visit to the doctor, he seems to remember everything the more. To distract him from his vaccination, I pointed to him that the doctor was writing on a paper with a pen, something that fascinates him. And later I asked him, and he replied -

"Did we go to the doctor today? The doctor was writing on the paper with a...?"
"Pem"
"The doctor was writing with a pen on the...?"
"Paypa"
"Who was writing on the paper with a pen?"
"Dauter"
"What was the doctor doing on the paper with a pen"
(After a few tries)"Writin"

It was awesome.

And then, the complex sentences. After an interesting trip, he would say - "Mamu, did you see lake that day?" "Did we go to park that day?"
And - "Want to do something intet-ting (interesting)". "Want to do sing Cheetah story."
The 'do' before every verb is his own quirk, and I must say, it's very catchy. (Want to do read it, Want to do go there, Want to do say sorry to Mummy, Want to do make hanky ball). I feel like talking like this all the time.
After a mischief, before we can say anything, he would say to himself - "Why did you break it?" "Why did you pill (spill) it?"
Now he's learning slightly more complicated ideas like 'already', 'mostly', 'yesterday', 'tomorrow'.

Before going to sleep, he has started listening to stories. And since he can't follow 'The Hare and the Tortoise' yet, stories for him are adapted from his own daily routines, set probably in a park, at a birthday party, or in the rain, where he's usually one of the characters.

When I see him lying down listening to stories, and participating in building them, I look at him and try to dream how it must be to discover stories for the first time, to discover language for the first time. The 'eyes of a child' here, are now his.