Story

Learning to Speak.  First Words. 

Son

Your first word was  Ahhhh !  which you would say whilst pointing up to the centre of the ceiling of any room whenever we entered one together. Sometimes you were pointing to the light that was on, sometimes to one that was not, and sometimes because it was missing, you thought, in which case, you would search until it was found, your body swaying back in my arm, your arm stretched out, waiting to point at the right place. 

I can't remember how long it took me to tell you the common name for it.  My first child, I oscillated between teaching you what I thought I knew and what I imagined you should know, and letting you show me the nature of things, through your unencumbered eyes. 

So I think the big light, as your little sister decided to call it, was always   Ahhhhhhhh !!!!!!   between us and perhaps you've never named it anything else since inside your own mind because it's always there in the back of mine.  

Daughter

Your first word came long after your gestures and shouts. I worried it was because you were deaf but didn't want you tested properly because I wondered if the grommets so popular as a remedy for slow response to sound in small children those days might interfere with the natural development of your actual inherent capacity and potential, if that makes any sense to you at all.  Let it suffice to say that I was prepared to be patient and it paid off luckily - one day the blast of a plane overhead whilst we were at the top of the garden playing together startled you so severely I wondered if it had jogged your brain into paying attention to sound. You ran, terrified, inside and I had to coax you out over the next few days with games and lollies and lots of reassurance. Soon, you too would mooooo as well as point whenever a cow came down to the wall and moooooon also would escape your lips when we went in search of her appearance every early evening when Dada came home.