They're Listening

This is our little 19-month-old crazy, sweet Russell. He's picked up on language pretty quickly (at least faster than his older brother, Jaron). We tracked one day all the words he used without us prompting and it was at least 40 words. And that wasn't everything. He is also a treat fiend. While our family was enjoying a walk Clark and I were planning a family vacation. During the course of the conversation Jaron declared in that he wanted to camp and cook food over a fire. As Clark and I mused where Jaron learned about campfire cooking I mentioned roasting marshmallows. Russell, who was contently riding on Clark's shoulders and had been mum up to this point pipped up, "Marshmallows?" He looked at me like I was hiding something. "No Russell, we don't have marshmallows." Clark and I looked at each other and thought, great (or wow) he's paying attention to what we are saying.

For the next 10 minutes we amused ourselves - me to the point of tears - by carrying on a completely meaningless conversation but would periodically throw in words of things Russell likes. And every time without fail he would look at me quizzically and say: "Candy?" "Bananas?" "Chocolate?" "Crackers?" "Ice cream?" . . . You get my point. I laughed and laughed. You would think by now I would realize they are always listening. I did ask Russell when he would stop listening. He didn't respond but I'm assuming when he hits the age of 12 or 13 his ears magically won't hear us anymore. Even if we were talking about candy.