Tell Me a Story

Sophia has a lot to say these days. First there is the matter of her own name; it comes out like "Feeeedah!" (exclamation point and everything), and I like it well enough that we're letting it stick. Phida color. Phida color book. Phida color Phida, sometimes, with a sly look in her eye. Phida do it. This last she says even in her sleep. Who did it? we ask her. Phidaaaaaaah!

The thing that amazes me most, though, is the storytelling -- the marrying of language to memory. The first story she ever recounted was one about a rhinoceros at the zoo. It was feeding time, and we were standing there watching the rhino, its head hidden behind a wall. "Nino!" Sophia informed me. After a few minutes the rhino paused at its clandestine hay-munching and looked over at us, neutrally, the way rhinos do. Sophia's face registered shock and then understanding.

"Peek boo!" she said. "Peek boo Nino!"

Several times a day thereafter she would cue us: "Nino! Peek boo!" and we would tell the story of the rhino at the zoo, and how it said, "Peekaboo, Sophia!" and Sophia said, "Peekaboo, Rhino!" and so on. It was the germ of a story, those two words, a trigger of that memory.

Then along came a spider. Down came a spider, actually, from the (hideous) chandelier over the dining table, right in front of Sophia in her high chair. "Ee-oo!" she said, pointing. Spiders are ee-oos because of the song, you know, eensy weensy spider, which in baby-ese is ee-oo ee-oo (with a glottal stop where the hyphen is). So the ee-oo was about to land in Sophia's oatmeal, and I made a snap decision not to squish it, which would probably necessitate explanations beyond the capacity of toddler speak, but rather to escort it to the backyard on a paper towel. I scooped it away and deposited it on the back patio; Sophia looked on.

"Ee-oo...outside!" she said, fascinated. Clearly I had made the right parenting decision here. "Yes, ee-oos live outside in the leaves and grass," I told her, glad that I hadn't smushed the beloved ee-oo.

So went the story for a few days. "Ee-oo...outside!" she would say, with much emphasis. Then it became "Ee-oo...down down down!...outside!"  And one day: "Down down down...ee-oo...light! Walking!...Mama! Holding! Outside!" It's been a month, and we still talk about it. ("Walking" appears to be a very important attribute of things; it often figures largely in stories, and is pronounced with the kind of grave flourish you might expect from the unveiling of a hamburger-sized diamond.)

There's also the story of the nice young zoo employee who was displaying a box turtle in the reptile exercise yard one day. The story appeared almost fully realized, one recent evening, and it was so obvious that we immediately knew what she was talking about, even though the event in question had occurred at least a week ago.

"Peeck up! Turdole! Meen!"

"A man picked up a turtle?"

"Holding! Heeen!"

"He was holding the turtle in his hand!"

"Walkeeng!"

"The turtle was walking."

We tell these stories every day, again and again, which must be reinforcing the memories. I wonder if she'll be able to recall them -- or at least her own renditions of them -- years later. I remember a lot from my very early childhood: my Stingray the Astronaut pajamas (flowered thermal long johns that I wore when I wanted to be Stingray the Astronaut, a character of my own device when I was maybe two), kitchen cabinets as tall as I was, the way my mother's face looked from beneath when she held me in her arms. That must have been a pretty early one, but it's there. Little flashes of things, textures, printed sheets, the way the light looked in the afternoon when that spooky Fleetwood Mac song was on the radio.

When the weightiness of the whole child-raising enterprise is so obvious, it is helpful to have Sean around. After about the eightieth telling, he likes to translate these stories into movie-trailer form -- you know, that one guy's voice who does all the "In a world..." ads?

A man. ... A turtle. ... Picking up. ... A hand. ... Holding.

An ee-oo. ... Walking. ... A light. ... A mama. ... Holding. ... Outside.

Good times.

Comments

[JUl]

Wowie zowie... that kiddo's language is AMAZING! Have you guys tried doing an informal word count? My sisters and I did one for J.Q. the other day; without really trying, we got to 229... it's absolutely staggering how fast the little buggers slurp up information. Favorite acquisition today? Peacock ("pea-cot"). He loves peacocks. When he sees a picture of one in a book, he kisses it. All together now: AWWWW!

The movie trailer thing? Brilliant.

[Liza]

"An ee-oo..." That, pictured in a deep movie-trailer-man voice, just slays me to NO end! My littlest is three weeks younger than Phida and doesn't say their own name but instead says "MINE." As in "Mine wan appadooce" or "NO dass MINE bubba!" The little bugger has even learned a rudimentary form of tattling "XXX! XXX mine OWIE!" XXX being the biggest sibling in the house. It's hilarious watching the baby try to slide down off my hip and run with the pack and cursing them out when they leave "mine" in the dust :-) Good times, yes indeed. Babies rock.

[Franay]

Gosh, that's a wonderful post! I don't think I'll ever forget the peekaboo with the rhino story! That is so wonderful and I can almost hear her saying it. Thanks for the heart warming story!!

[DebbieS]

Wow, can she ever talk! Seph is the same age and she still calls me "Daddy"! (Although I think that's a joke, she started out signing and the first time she signed and said "Daddy" instead of "Mommy", it got a huge laugh and now she smirks and calls me "Daddy" every time.)

How do you do it? Want to come here and teach my daughter, too? We can go to the World Famous San Diego Zoo and see if their "ninos" want to play peek-a-boo ;)

[Elizabeth]

You have quite a talker!! I love hearing your stories about Sophia. My daughter is 3 months older and I just *love* watching her language begin to flower. I love the insight into how her mind works, what she finds fascinating. Lately it is the moon. As soon as it gets dark..."moon, moon!" - she says urgently, and tries to pull us outside to look for it. If she catches a glimpse of it through the window, she will make us stop everything to look at it with her. I love this stage, I just love it. And yet somehow I am always too busy/exhausted to take photos or video. It's a toddler whirlwind and I'm caught up in it!

Oh, and DebbieS, I will actually be at the SDZoo tomorrow! Hi to a fellow San Diegan Leery Polyp reader! :-)

[Chickenpig]

Really great talking! And Phida is a neat name, not as pretty as Sophia, but I could see an actress using it in a heartbeat...much cooler than Apple :)

It is good that you have this Blog, too. A couple of years down the road you'll have this memory at your fingertips.

[beth]

Anika used to do a similar thing, except all of her stories were about her getting boo-boos. It was a veritable litany of complaints. Something like "Wunnaponnatime (once upon a time)...goat bite finger (hold up finger), dog push, hit head (point to head), fall stairs, bang knee (point to knee), hot hot o-meal in mouth (stick out tounge)" Then she'd usually ask for band-aids for all the long since healed scrapes, bites, and whatnot. She'd tell us about this several times each day. I quess it was around 18 months.

[Jo in Utah]

I suppose if I spent most of my life working on aquiring a skill and was finally able to do it, I might give it some gravity too! Clever girl.

[Tina]

Love the 'walking' equated with a hamburger sized diamond! She's too cute!

[Kara]

I love the stories!

Isn't funny for how long they can live? Just yesterday, my two-year old re-told the story about how the flowers outside were all-gone! because it was winter and it's so sad! but they'll be back in the spring. I ripped out the flowers in November--sheesh, will he never let me live that one down?

[ali]

phida. love that.

my isabella calls herself "bulla"

[Rosie]

I'm delurking after way too long reading and loving this blog.

Since you were wondering whether Sophia will remember any of this when she's older I thought you (and others) might be interested in a show that aired on BBC Radio 4 last week. It's called "In My Pram I Remember":

'900 of the memories we collected in the Memory Survey were very early "preverbal" memories - some from as early as 6-11 months old. This result has shocked scientists and academics who believe that adults do not remember memories of childhood before they can talk. Research agrees that the mean age for true autobiographical memories is 3.5 years - but it appears that the nations' memories and scientific study disagree.'

You can listen to the show online (about 28 mins long), there's an orange clickable "Listen" button on the page I linked to.

[chasmyn]

So sweet! I love the movie trailer voice :)

Isn't this age brilliant? Of course, the girls seem to get the language more quickly than the boys, but Kiernen is getting the language all the same. I love reading about where Sophia is with it :)

[Annie]

My Sophia (now almost 4) used to say PIggy! Market! Home! Beef! Man, I miss that. Now she can sing Flaming Lips songs so that's pretty fun too. It's all hard and fun.

blessings to you guys~

[AussieAndrea]

It's so cool to hear these stories, especially as I remember reading here before the lovely Sophia came along. Glad I could be around for this too!

[Kristin]

Beautiful. Its just amazing to hear how that little brain is working. I can't wait for talking.

[Claudia]

Delurking (I think?) to say that this is just tooo cute! "Phida"! I can't wait till my son starts telling me "stories" too!

[Jody]

Write down as many of these as you can, because my kids could tell quite remarkably vivid and accurate stories about their past until they were about four, when the effects either of moving or of starting to learn new things sent those memories into the deep recesses of their brains. At two and three, I would say: who says little kids don't remember? Listen to these kids! Now they are amazed to hear me tell them their own stories, in their own words.

It's actually quite a bittersweet experience. I don't know why I'm being so depressing here....

[cloudscome]

Yes, my oldest had an amazing memory of toddler things too until he turned about 4. Then alot of it got lost under the new layers of grey matter....

I love how you tell these stories of language flowering. It is fascinating and beautiful! You are so perseptive of the growth of story in Sophia's mind. The little seeds of understanding... the text-to-self, text-to-world connections... flashes of understanding and compassion.