Colorful, Little, Blue Starfish

I always knew I’d love watching Zary grow. I remember fawning over the tiny wet footprints on the bath rug that suddenly seemed an inch bigger.  I can’t explain to you how confused I was the day the lights in the house kept turning on, only to find out Z could finally reach the switches.  And the clothes – good gosh almighty! I’m terrible at ordering outfits in her correct size. They always seem to show up just in time for her torso to get a little longer and, whoops, there’s her belly button sticking out again.

What I never predicted, though, is my absolute fascination with her development of speech. Probably because Zarrin refused to speak a single word until she was almost two. She made up her own sign language that was so effective, we just assumed she didn’t need oral speech to communicate. We eventually learned, however, that the real reason for her speech strike was that our kid is a perfectionist (anyone surprised? Nope.) And unless she could pronounce a word perfectly, she wouldn’t say it at all. Cue not speaking a damn syllable to us until near about 24 months.

That’s not to say she was incapable of talking until then… no. On the contrary, Z would skip naps on the reg to sit in her crib and PRACTICE talking. Whispering the same word over and over and over until it was just right. Then she’d hold on to it for a week or two, and drop it on us nonchalantly at dinner like she’d been chatting it up with us all along. This went on for months. We KNEW she could speak; she was choosing not to.

I finally broke her strike at lunch one weekend. Zary was going through her “stories phase”. She would grunt incessantly and flash her “tell me a story” hand sign until we gave in. But during story time, we weren’t allowed to read books. My little boss babe insisted that we tell stories made up on the fly. She loved stories more than anything. We’d sit on the couch and I’d tell stories for an hour or more at a time. She’d do anything to keep story time going. So, one day I flipped the game on her – and told a story about grocery shopping.

Me: “Mommy and baby were going to the store to buy some fruit… And, oh gosh, I forgot this part of the story. I need your help. Did mommy buy oranges or blueberries?”

Z: “BLUEBERRIES!!!”

Me: “Oh, you’re right! Yum! And then I decided, you know what I love with blueberries? Yogurt. Do you know what flavor yogurt I bought?”

Z: “VANILLA!!!”

Me: “Oh right! Thanks! I keep forgetting this story. Now, after yogurt I think I needed to buy some eggs… or was it milk?”

Z: “MILK! AND EGGS!”

I made this story last for 15 minutes while Nick’s jaw rested open on the table. Our mute little miss could speak. Clearly.

And now she won’t shut up. But really, it’s 10:00PM and she’s in her crib scream-singing her ABC’s.

I especially love watching her figure out how words fit together in the right order to form sentences. Zary will repeat the same sentence three or four times until she knows she got it right. It’s most captivating to watch her deal with multiple adjectives describing a single word. This week, she’s been pretending that she’s a starfish (I have no idea, don’t ask). She’ll yell out something like “Colorful, blue, little Starfish!” followed by, “NO!  Blue, colorful, little Starfish! NO! Colorful, little, blue Starfish!”

Did you catch why this is so cool?

English has a specific order of adjectives. Whether or not you’re formally taught this, we all know it. The order is: opinion, size, physical quality, shape, age, color, origin, material, type, purpose. We know the sun isn’t the yellow, hot, big ball in our solar system. It’s the big, hot, yellow ball in our solar system.  

Zary (obviously, because she’s two) hasn’t totally dissected this rule yet. Her sentences are still jumbled up nonsense 95% of the time. But at two and a half years old she inherently knows a rule such as this exists. And she knows she’s not using it correctly yet. And yes, that pisses her off. Kid’s got my Type A bloodline. I’m pretty sure once she does figure it out, she’ll insist on being called the “beautiful, little, sparkly, blue, aquatic starfish” and will undoubtedly yell at us if we get the order wrong. Lord help us all.