How to speak like a 14 month old

After hours of searching the Rosetta Stone catalog for a course on how to speak 14-month-old, I realized the odds of finding such a product were slim. And since I’m not good with languages (15 years of Hebrew class and I can barely speak a word of it), I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me.

So I came up with a scientific research strategy: write down all the syllables I heard Caley say, and then write down all the objects in the room that contained that sound.

After a few calculations I narrowed it down that, on average, each syllable could mean any one of fifteen things. For example, the syllable “Ba” could mean any of the following:

Bottle
Ball
Balloon
Basket
Break dance
ScooBa
Burp
Blanket
Boy
Baby
Book
Backpack
Broken glass
Booze
Bank statement

I began to map the possibilities together. I ended up with the following graph:

I was getting somewhere. But I needed a way to narrow down the options. So I started observing physical cues Caley gave when she made her sounds. She pointed, smiled, drooled, snotted, patted her belly, cried, flopped, and clapped. She also farted once.

I mapped out the new data over the original data and got the following graph:

After studying this graph for a few hours, I began to understand what Caley was trying to tell me, and, after a while, I became fluent in her language. We started to communicate in ways I never thought possible.

Here are bunch of  things she says and what they mean:

“Shh shh ba” (while clapping)
Translation: “Tell mommy I need a diaper change.”

“Ba eeh shh ya” (While pointing at the ceiling)
Translation: “Tell mommy I want a bath.”

“Che see ka bay ap” (smiling)
Translation “Tell mommy to get you a beer.”

It’s really pretty amazing what a little research and observation can help you understand. It’s like we have a whole new relationship. I never thought she was so aware of what’s going on. For example, she’s already reminded me twice this month to pay off our bank statement. I told her to tell her mommy. She handles that stuff.

How I Became a Blogger

What have I done? Here I am, losing my blogging virginity to a black Compaq keyboard, kicking myself with each letter I press. I am trying to shut out the “It’s not too late! You can still go back! Delete it! Delete it!” conscience over my left shoulder, but she just gets louder. “You should know better! You were raised better than this. Where did your sense of judgment go?”…

Doesn’t help. Nothing works. The more she questions, the less I listen. La la la la la la la la la la. The plank I’m walking is starting to look like a diving board. The “publish” button is so close…

I have decided to become a victim to modern day society. Just weeks after joining Facebook, I have chosen to start my life as a blogger. But at least it was a choice. Unlike the throngs of people drowning in the depths of techno-assimilation, I used a logical and carefully measured thought process. I thought like a smoker: “OK, I know this is dangerous. What I’m getting into has been known to be addictive and harmful. Many people have not been able to quit……but it feels so good!”

But I have trouble placing the sudden technological gluttony that has befallen me. Why did I finally choose to join all the tecky hype? Well, I have only one conclusion: Power Wheels.

I only faintly remember the commercials I saw as a child. Most of the details have dissolved into some other form of energy. What I can remember is this: a little boy and his sister sit in the front seat of their Power Wheels ride (a Jeep) as they tear through their front lawn at 50MPH, both laughing.

I must have thought, at the time, that they were on some secret mission – maybe trying to catch a squirrel. (Now I can only speculate that it was nothing more than a joy ride.) But I was sure that smiles on their faces was a direct result of their Power Wheels. And so I wanted one. I wanted to speed. I wanted to sit in the front seat. I wanted to be in control.

But I didn’t get one, at least not until I was 17 (in the year 2000). And it wasn’t exactly a Power Wheels. It was a 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlas Sierra.

The car was not in great shape. I was surprised it made it through Y2K. The A/C was N/A, the horn sounded like a rooster with laryngitis, the turn signal needed to be manually shifted back and forth to blink, the tape player didn’t eject tapes, it shot them out like a cannon, and a bar of rust streaked through the blue paint like a log floating in the ocean. Needless to say, it was not as glamorous as the Power Wheels I fantasized about as a child. (Instead of chasing squirrels, my Cutlas would just run them over.)

My childhood dreams of driving drifted away with the realization that it was too late; my Cutlass would never be as fun as the Power Wheels.

The more technology I see, the more I think about Power Wheels. If I had gotten one as a child I wouldn’t have been so disappointed as a teenager. And this is precisely why I signed up for Facebook – why I began blogging. If I don’t take advantage of this technology while it is still fresh, still cool, I will just be disappointed later in life. Don’t get me wrong; I know this type of stuff has been around for a number of years, but it’s popularity still grows every day. So realized its never to late to start blogging, at least until it IS too late and the masses move on to some other sort of social and technolagical phenomenon that I will likely learn about years after it’s been fun and cool.

And it’s then that i’ll go to the one place that still gives me joy.