Who says life's fair?

Sallie Satterthwaitea has been a resident of Fayette Co. since 1971. She is involved in politics and the development of the community, and now a semi-retired housewife and grandma.

By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
sallies@juno.com

We were still on the road from Leesburg, Va., to Peachtree City, when our grandbaby Samuel, his mother told us later, began to speak. We’d been at his house for about a week, trying to get words out of him, but except for two or three coincidental sounds, he declined to converse with us, at least in English.

I figured it out, however. The key word is “English.” Toddlers are gifted mimics. This one has learned reverse mimicry: He growls, says “Eh, eh” when pleased, shrieks bloody murder and bares his teeth when he’s not.

And how do we respond? By growling, saying “Eh, eh,” and screeching to make him see how foolish he sounds and looks baring his teeth.

Just who is learning the new language in this scenario?

I’m grateful his mom is a little on the older side for child-rearing. She knows better than to worry about delays.

Actually, her boy is precocious in that, at 22 months, he is already firmly in the “terrible twos.”

His mom, of course, thinks that he should say “Mama” first, and Brian has the same thought about “Daddy.” Certainly the babble of very young children includes “mamamamama” and “dadadadadada,” so they don’t count as real words. A resounding “Grandma” is more what I have in mind. I’d even take “Mum-mum.”

I coached him in waving and saying, “Bye-bye,” and whenever he’d finish a cut fruit, I’d coo, “ALL-gone.”

Indeed, would you believe me if I told you that one of Samuel’s very first unmistakably English words was “Formaldehyde.”

Didn’t think so. I haven’t heard him say it myself, but both parents assert it is true.

Brian has a silly song about a bullfrog that begins, “My mother’s name is Clara Green,” in a bluesy baritone. (Hmmm. Brian’s mother’s maiden name is Clara Green.)

After several lines about the frog’s fate, the song ends with a sonorous descending phrase: “And they put me in formaldehyde” has instantaneously soothed that little boy out of a tantrum since before he was a year old.

Oh, and his part of “Old MacDonald,” the Ee-I-Ee-I refrain, never quite got the O on the end in there.

Remarkably, at least to this Grandma, is the fact that he does sing. In just a few weeks he went from aimless sounds to actual tunes. Brian has an old electronic organ that was rarely played until Samuel discovered it. He climbs up on the bench, flicks the on-switch, and then starts to pound the keys.

“Gentle, Samuel, gentle,” we’d say, and sometimes I played a tune above his, uh, chords to amuse him. I suddenly realized that when I played familiar tunes, like “Twinkle, twinkle little star” or “Rock-a-bye Baby,” he would sing along, exactly in the key I was playing. Not words (except Ee-I-Ee-I finally got its O) and not humming, just a sweet stream of wordless music.

He reminds me so often of a mother’s story of her young daughter’s silence until nearly her third birthday, in Haven Kimmel’s delightful book, A Girl Named Zippy. Her dad gave Zippy her nickname because of the way she zipped around the house. She was born in 1965 and was 10 years younger than her nearest sibling. Samuel is 10 years younger than his brother Isaac.

Zippy’s not speaking words by about 14 months worried her parents terribly, although doctors reassured them that their daughter was healthy in every way. She quotes from the baby book her mother kept, in which she often prays that Zippy would speak.

Her mother was reluctant to take away Zippy’s bottle because it was such a comfort to a child that obviously needed it.

In this scene, the family is camping out. The little girl was running around and around the campfire one evening, her pink plastic bottle clenched in her mouth, and her dad decided she’d had it long enough. He gave her a typical parental talk about how big she is now and it was time to toss the bottle into the campfire.

The unspeaking child looked from one family member to the next, popped the bottle out of her mouth, and said clear as daylight, “I’ll make a deal with you.” Everyone was dumfounded: Zippy’s first words.

Her dad kept his cool and asked her what the deal was. She said, “If you let me keep it, I’ll hide it when company comes and I won’t tell no-body.” After a moment or two mulling it over, her dad said, “Nope. No deal.”

She handed the bottle to him, and he threw it into the flames and silently they watched it melt into a little pink pool.

As for Samuel, he’ll speak English in good time, and actually has already begun. His mom told me on the phone that he utters a few words or a short sentence. He says, in proper context, “Bye-bye” and “ALL gone.” Now where do you suppose he learned that?