Sunday, June 12, 2005
Boo's World
I took the boys to the club yesterday morning with one purpose in mind: exhaust them into napping for a meaningful part of the afternoon. To my surprise, Boo happily floated in a friend's arms while Max and I played together in the pool. But then the inevitable occured. Boo began to resist the confines of his life jacket and, once it was removed, bolted for the tennis courts like a thoroughbred breaking out of the starting gate. I intercepted him on the back stretch, and then his protests began in earnest: "Tennis court! Tennis court! Please! Please! Please!" Could there have been any other context in which Boo would utter "please" for the first time? If Max hadn't been near the pool, I would surely have rewarded Boo's good manners with a few minutes on clay.
I treasure the way in which Boo's burgeoning vocabulary affords us glimpses into his inner world. Consider, for instance, the following sentences, which Boo intones throughout the day like a yogi's mantra.
1. Tennis court. Tennis ball. Hit ball.
2. Horse ranch. Horse cow. Ride horse.
3. Daddy lap.
Without Boo's urgent repetition, the words by themselves look rather dull and flat. But with his characteristic persistence, Boo animates them by tucking his racquet beneath his arm and trying to open the back door, or retrieving a horse photo from the bookcase, or uncrossing Lee's legs so that he can scramble into his lap with a book. It doesn't take an analyst's couch to figure him out, does it?
I treasure the way in which Boo's burgeoning vocabulary affords us glimpses into his inner world. Consider, for instance, the following sentences, which Boo intones throughout the day like a yogi's mantra.
1. Tennis court. Tennis ball. Hit ball.
2. Horse ranch. Horse cow. Ride horse.
3. Daddy lap.
Without Boo's urgent repetition, the words by themselves look rather dull and flat. But with his characteristic persistence, Boo animates them by tucking his racquet beneath his arm and trying to open the back door, or retrieving a horse photo from the bookcase, or uncrossing Lee's legs so that he can scramble into his lap with a book. It doesn't take an analyst's couch to figure him out, does it?
1 Comments:
I'm intrigued by the mental categories revealed in the second speech. Horse ranch. Horse cow. Ride horse. Is "horse" a verb, and adjective, or a noun? Yes.
I prefer to horse my cows also.
Well, if he hasn't quite worked out grammar, he's way ahead on tennis!
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