"Bairt," said Conrad, pointing at the loaf on the table. We had just walked in our front door from his swimming lesson.
"Bread?" I replied. "Would you like some bread darling?"
Emphatic single nod.
"Sure thing babe," I say. "And what would you like on it?"
"Bubba." Is the answer, with a point directly at the peanut butter on the shelf.
I am incredulous - we are having a full-blown conversation! - and don't quite believe my ears.
"Yes? You show me, darling," I say, to make certain, and hold him up to the cupboard where, sure enough, he touches the tub of peanut butter.
I've never been so excited about making and serving up six tiny pieces of peanut-butter-on-bread.
When it was gone, I softly asked, "Would you like some more, darling?", and a gluggy "moh!" was the immediate reply.
This is thrilling. It's so exciting to have this extra level of connection through language!
I've felt intensely connected to Conrad since he was a few weeks old (it didn't happen the moment I laid eyes on him) and we have had intimate, sensitive two-way communication with each other since ooooh about three months old? (I wasn't too good at understanding him before that age).
I almost thought that was the way it always would be, that he would forever communicate with me without the need for words. I understood him using my intuition, by deliberately being open to receiving meaning, and trying hard to empathise with whatever he was feeling at the time.
I still have that openness, that empathy, that intuition, but now there's this wonderful precision and, my god, such EASE in understanding him: Oh yeah, I hadn't noticed, there IS a "bird" in that picture. Yes, that oven IS "hot", so please don't touch it. And of course, "NO", you don't want any more dinner, and fair enough too.
