My Happy Place, Da-ism

According to standard pediatric lore and common observation, my one and something year old ‘should’ be talking by now…at least a few words anyhow. By all stretches of the imagination, one would think that life even for a very little human creature would be greatly enhanced by utilizing the verbal skills of his mother tongue. But, though not a dull creature, this kid seems to prefer a speechless world, but he is nonetheless not a silent force to be reckoned with.

At dinner yesterday, for example, this speechless, though not soundless, child was clearly articulating his every desire quite effectively. The only bothersome thing for us speaking types is that he differentiates his wordless desires by his volume and pitch whereas we differentiate the world verbally through different sounds as well as volume, pitch, timbre, etc. If we are tuned in with the boy and his desired ‘da’, his multipurpose ‘word’ for pretty much everything, then his and subsequently our nearby little world is at peace. However, things can get quite unexpectedly violent if, for instance, we thought his ‘da’ meant bread where for him it actually meant butter. Then, he turns up the volume a notch and repeats ‘da’, so we scramble before he reaches glass shattering levels of ‘da’ to locate the ‘da’ he is actually intending, which to decipher in the midst of a public restaurant with four other little ones needing their own little things for comfort and happiness is no small task.

Though well intentioned, we miss again, so this time he declares boldly ‘DA! DA!’ which, as far as I can tell means: ‘You fools! Will somebody around please listen to me!’ It also means that our neighboring diners are now on standby for immediate evacuation if volume levels continue to increase. Perhaps, my wife and I are a bit ambitious to take a family with five kids out to eat, but we do so rarely. We’ll occasionally splurge and go out on holiday weekends when most of our kids’ friends with either fewer or older kids have gone to Paris, Disneyland, or Hawaii. Given that we can hardly travel more than a few miles from home without some serious and disturbing incident which requires our immediate attention (like a crayon dropped between the seats, for instance), we’ve decided that on our holidays we tend to stay closer to home, but celebrate by dining out once or twice to change things up a bit. I admit, that at times, we are a bit bound up in a vacation-less environment because even when doing something fun and different with small children often doesn’t equate with rest and relaxation.

Now that the volume level had drawn the attention of the local authorities and the international media, I was shuffling pretty swiftly while trying to stay calm and search out the latest DAism of my son. I was failing miserably; I could tell by his repeated angry jesters and louder and louder ‘DAs’. I looked to my wife to let her know that I was going to implement operation ‘Get This Kid Out of the Public Space ASAP!’ I figured the relaxing benefits of dining out had now been heartily outweighed by my very loud, but speechless twenty pound boy. He was attracting the attention of nearly the whole place at this point. I figured that I would find my inner peace and harmony much more readily at this point by hustling this kid out of the restaurant, strapping him into his car seat, and waiting with him their until the rest of my family finished their meal in relative quiet as he shouted his crescendo-like ‘DA’ behind me in the minivan.

My quest for an eastern form of inner recollection was over: my da-ism had found me. It was yet again in the form of a child; this time he was a needy, demanding, and in his own way an adorable little child, who, in spite of the great desire of his dearest associates, has yet to find his voice in noisy world.

Closing the Sale

Stories from the Frontline of Fatherhood: February 12, 2006

My four year old is quickly learning the tough art of persuasive communication. He’s is a ‘strong-willed’ child, but then again pretty much all of my kids are. This one, along with the others, has many enjoyable characteristics, but at the ripe old age of four his verbal ability to get what he wants seems, at present, to lag significantly his great desires. This manifests itself in many ways throughout any given day, but when he is inclined to converse with you, just to socialize and make small talk, it seems to shine all the brighter.

For better or for worse, we’ve introduced this child and his older siblings to the Lord of the Rings Trilogy as directed by Peter Jackson. The older kids had been exposed to Tolkien’s great books a few years ago, but since they have seen censored snippets of the recent movie series, our four year old has been captivated by the main characters. He cuts out Aragorn’s sword from construction paper, Gimli’s axe from some scraps, and Legolas’ (in his case, pronounced Lego-lows) bow and arrows with the little bits leftover.

We are all mildly entertained by his focus and attention to detail until he begins what seems to begin as a low-key chat session about his day, general interest, and life in general. He is a direct child, so if he starts a conversation he gets right to the point: “So, dad who is favorite character in Lord of the Rings, but it has to be King Aragon!?” (I am not sure whether to put a question mark after that previous statement/question, but that is indeed just how he quizzes me.) To have fun with him, I respond, “Well, I guess I’d have to think about it.” This usually isn’t the response he is looking for, so he follows-up quickly and somewhat differently with: “Who is favorite character in Lord of the Rings, but it has to be Gimli.” “I guess it is King Aragorn,” I say, but having seen me break his most recent bind, he quickly replies, “It has to be Gimli.” “Okay, okay, it is Gimli,” I say with a smile. Apparently I was to easy of a sell on this, so he changes again, but now he is rooting for Gandalf, or Legolas, or whomever. But the formulated question/statement remains the same.

After a while, I finally figured out that he wasn’t selling me anything about who should be my personal favorite, nor, clearly, was he interested in who my favorite was. As he was talking it over and over in really limited terms he was attempting time and time and yes time and time again to see if he could settle which character was ultimately his own favorite, which to this day I am pretty sure is Gimli, no it has to be Aragorn, no it has to be Legolas…

It has been said that kids are the greatest salespeople around: they know what motivates their clientele to action perhaps better than their clients, they have great persistence, and they have great persistence which wears this client down expediently in order to ‘close the sale.’ In this case, I am not sure who is more worn down for it though, but he seems to enjoy the chase nonetheless.