June 18, 2004 - Friday
"Me dee copfer lie mine." Jeremy said that or something like it yesterday from the back seat of the car while we were driving home. It was the kind of thing from a toddler voice that would be completely unintelligible to anyone listening, including even his mother and me under most circumstances, where there no frame of reference. Thankfully, I had seen the helicopter passing over the road ahead of us, too. It was fairly close but came out of the trees then went quickly behind the ones on the other side of the street. I would have called it to the boys' attention, but it went by too fast and mentioning it would have only started a hopeless discussion of "where?" and "can we see it again?" But, I had the context for Jeremy's comment and it was the only reason I was able to decipher his version of "hey, I just saw a helicopter that looked like the toy one I have in my room."

I said something like, "that's right, Jeremy," purposefully trying to not let Harry think he missed something. But, amazingly, he already knew about it.
"Where was it? Did it go behind the trees?" he asked, having amazingly been able to understand what his brother had said.

Of course, in a sense, there's nothing remarkable about that at all. One hears stories of young siblings sharing their own special languages all the time. This far from the first time Harry has shown an acumen for his younger brother's unique dialect. And, I certainly am not the first parent to have at times asked a four-year-old for a translation of the two-year-old toddler speak. Yet, it is a fascinating statement about the agility of a young mind and it's sponge-like ability to learn to communicate.


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