Another enforced break, but this time for all the right reasons. A trip to Pringle Bay, some 70km outside Cape Town, with Grandma and Granddad for some well deserved rest and relaxation (Nix and I) and some serious running around, penguin chasing, sandcastle building and general industriousness by Alex. You can see several of these acts taking place on flickr.
Talking of the boy wonder, he’s not. Talking, that is. We are still awaiting his first proper spoken word. In the highly competitive world of Cape Town parenting, this is not good. But that’s a world I don’t want to get into.
“Tarquin* said “Dada” before he was a year old.”
“A year? Huh! Jocelyn* was quoting Shakespeare at 10 months, you know?”
“Really? 10 months? So late. Our Prudence* asked the Gynae how he was as her head popped out and she’s already won the Booker prize twice and been nominated for 3 Academy Awards, including the coverted Best Director honour. This week, she’s popping over to Baghdad to have a chat with interested parties there and sort out their problems. And we’re hoping to have her potty trained before she’s three.”
The amount of vocabulary that Alex understands amazes me. Someone only has to mention a word in the middle of a sentence and he will act upon it. I mentioned putting another coat of paint on a wall and he took me immediately to the coat rack in the hall. At first, this seemed pretty foolish since it didn’t need painting, but Nix pointed out my use of the c word and all became clear.
Currently however, the best we can get out of him is “Adare!”. This has led to him being asked some obscure questions in front of visitors in order for us to try and show off:
“Alex, what do you call a challenge to do something dangerous, courageous or foolhardy?”
“Adare!”
“Very good! Clever boy!”
and:
“Alex, what was the surname of “Red”, the renowned American oil field firefighter?”
“Adair!”
And so it continues…
I’m not too worried about Alex’s current lack of articulatory phonetics. I have this sneaking feeling that he’s been penning a great address in his cot after lights out, ready for his party on the 25th of this month. And as the ever-wise Dave Gahan famously pointed out, maybe we should Enjoy the Silence in the face of the impending wave of verbal diarrhoea which we will doubtless encounter for the next 5 years or so.
One thing is for sure dear reader, you will be (among) the first to know when we finally take the big step beyond “Adare!” – especially if you are within cheering distance of chez 6000.
* The names have been changed to protect the foolish.