Vocabulary

Luca is up to 6 official words: Up (“Uppie”) Bottle (“Baba”) Elijah (“Eee eye”) Baby (“Baby”) Bye (“Bye”) and Grover (“Grover”). Fairly good for a kid who is barely a year old. And whatever words he doesn’t command, he takes care of with pointing and grunting.

The other boy, on the other hand, seems to be headed in the other direction, communication-wise. Elijah has started making up his own language, “Elijish.”

Elijish is a fairly unique language. Because there is only one person in the world who understands it. And that person revises the rules of the language every time he speaks.

For example, Elijah will point to a fork and say, “Daddy, can I have a gleepglop?”

“Oh, this is a ‘Gleepglop’ in your language?”

“No, it’s a ‘Florblech.’”

“Wait, you just said it was a ‘Gleepglop.’ Now it’s a ” ‘Florblech.’?”

“No, daddy. It’s a ‘Blorgblorg.’”

At which point I stick my head in the oven. The other night, Elijah was speaking exclusively in Elijish. I decided to up the ante by speaking in Rickish.

So when he said, “Smorbutt gerflunkle boof,” I responded, “Blaffle herckle jerkle.”

Elijah laughed his head off and we began a mock argument in our respective languages. It sounded like a UN conference mixed with a taxicab ride.