ASK, AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE? (Maybe)

"When a tree falls in a lonely forest, and no animal is near by to hear it, does it make a sound?"   - Physics by Charles Riborg Mann and George Ransom Twiss. 


Note to Self:  PAY ATTENTION!

Our Little Man is what they call "hyperverbal."  It might be more accurate to say he is super-extra-mega-hyperverbal.  Like hyperverbal on steroids.  More or less from the time he gets up, to the time he goes to sleep he is jabbering away.  In fact, I have carried him to bed while he was asleep and heard him muttering.  Usually it is something repetitive like dialogue from a TV show, or part of a song.  Sometimes, or maybe even most times, it is meaningless.  Think about that annoying song you can not get out of your head and it just keeps repeating, over and over.  Now multiply that by 24x7. 

But sometimes, it does have meaning.  The issue for us is separating the meaningful from the meaningless.

So, I came home from work the other night and the Little Man comes to greet me with his brothers.  This time, he does not give me the scripted "Hi, Daddy" before he runs off to play.  But instead he says "Little Einsteins" and he tries to push his way past me out the door.

"Little Einsteins."  Meaningful or meaningless?

Initially, I thought it was just a meaningless utterance he made as he wanted to squeeze past me and run outside.  Since he is a flight risk, going out alone is a major no-no.  I was readying myself for the coming battle of wills when it struck me.  He was in my car the night before and left his Little Einstein's character figurines in the car.  He was not mindlessly stating whatever was in his head.  He was requesting the toys from my car.

Here I was ready to play stern parent on him and not allow him to run outside, when all he wanted was to get his toys from the car.  It scares me to think how often that may happen to him.  How frustrating it must be to have such a limitation on communication, to overcome that limitation to verbalize a very simple request - only to have that request ignored - or maybe worse- to be misunderstood. 

Note to Self: PAY ATTENTION!