When I was a Special Education student, I was fascinated by language development. It was so intriguing to research various theories of how we learn language, how our language separates us from even highly trained animals, and methods of teaching students who have not naturally “absorbed” language as do most children.

As a Special Education teacher, I loved watching students progress from parroting words, spoken or signed, to truly using language to communicate. Then again when they transitioned from communicating what they did or did not want, to communicating interesting things in their world – I loved that too.

As a Momma, I have delighted in observing Siena as she learns new words and learns to communicate with us. Her first word was “Hi” and it’s still the word she uses the most. She greets just about every person who crosses her path, and repeats her greeting until she gains their attention. Everybody we pass at the grocery store, at Mass, the Post Office, the doctor’s office, restaurants…she’s not satisfied unless every last person has made eye contact, smiled, and either waved or said “hi.” Even better if they declare how cute she is, or how friendly, or how happy.

At first she struck me as extremely observant, delightedly pointing out dogs, bears, flowers, stars, moons, apples, bananas, and babies in cluttered or busy environments. I often have to look carefully to find the item she’s pointing to, marveling at her attention to detail.

Lately I’ve started to think of these incidents with an analogy. I picture that, for her first twelve months or so, Siena has been seeing the world in black and white, not knowing the names of the things she sees. Then as soon as she learned “flower” it was like every flower in her environment turned to color. It would be like having a Where’s Waldo book where only Waldo and his red striped shirt were in color but busy pages were shades of grey.

If there are only a few colorful items in your world, they’re going to grab your eye even if others don’t give them a second glance. Here’s an example. Ever since Siena learned “moon” she points it out in the sky and in her board books. She’s starting to see moon-like shapes though. She got a St. Valentine’s Day card from her Nonna and Papa with cartoon hearts with big white grins. At first I didn’t understand when Siena was pointing to the hearts and calling them moons, until I realized the crescent smiles looked like moons to her. Same thing the day I peeled a whole banana and showed it to her. And again when she nibbled her canned pineapple ring into a half circle. Both suddenly looked like moons to her.

I love watching her figure out categories and other complexities of language. It used to be that any dot or circle she saw was “ball”, including the heads on the icons for men’s and women’s bathrooms. Then we played with bubbles one day, and one dimensional circles all turned into “bubba”s and only spheres remain balls. There is an exception to her rule though. My favorite “bubba” is the clear plastic ball my drugstore trouser socks came in. When I first bought it she called it a ball, but now it’s her treasured bubble, supposedly because it’s clear?

Based on observations of how she groups her toys, she seems focused on the task of understanding the categories of plants, people, and animals. Her way of distinguishing something as an animal is by making a growling sound. If she knows it’s not a cat, dog, bird, or fish but that it is an animal whose label she doesn’t know, she categorizes it as “animal” by making a throaty “grrrr” sound. (At least that’s my interpretation of what she’s doing.) I laughed so hard the day she was figuring out her new figurine of Crush from Finding Nemo. He’s a turtle with flowers on his shell. She pointed to him and called him a flower – fwowuh. I said yes, he has flowers on his shell but he’s called a turtle. She seemed puzzled that a flower was somehow also an animal, and settled on meshing the two categories by using her guttural, growly voice to declare it “Fwowuh!”

She’s also expressed confusion about Baby Jesus having the same name as the Jesus on the cross at church. There’s a big wooden crucifix leaning against the wall of the room we use as a cry room in the back of the church. A while ago she pointed to him and asked, “Grrr?” as if to say, “Is that an animal?” I told her that was Jesus. She paused for a moment then exclaimed with a tone of recognition: “Baybee!”

She’s paying attention to the language at Mass, too. Soon after she learned the word “sun”, came the reading of the Prodigal Son. You guessed it – each time the priest said “son” Siena happily echoed with “sun.” Another time we were attending the afternoon Spanish Mass since we’d all slept in and missed the morning Mass. She heard the priest say, “manana” and grinned at me like she was in on a joke, and said “Momma!”.

Siena is reminding me of another reason I find language development so fascinating: it helps me see the world through the eyes of a child. Siena’s world is a pretty exciting place, full of friends just waiting to be greeted with a “Hi!” and a huge smile. I sure hope she maintains her joyful optimism as she discovers more and more about the world. I look forward to helping her reveal all of its colors.