Communicating with small children should be a specialized scientific field, and I deserve a freaking PhD. I have two kids with vastly different communicative abilities due to their ages, and in the case of my daughter, her willingness to be understood. There are days when I go back and forth between wishing my son could talk, and wishing my daughter couldn't, and there are even days when I ban the word "Mommy" from being uttered in my hearing. Ever seen the episode of Family Guy when Stewie stands next to Lois' bed and repeats different forms of the word "Mom" over and over? TOTALLY. EFFING. ACCURATE.
My son is only 9 months old, so his main form of communication is screaming. He has various forms of screaming, from joyful, to interested, to angry, to upset, and even just to hear his own voice. His secondary form is Chuck Norris level karate moves to get to what he wants, and these usually occur while I'm holding him, and therefore am keeping him from getting to what he wants. And because I don't want him to ingest Barbie shoes or lick the dog bowls, I am regularly sporting bite marks on my arms or huge bruises on my chest. Communicating with babies is exactly like communicating with cats. You ask a lot of rhetorical questions (What do you what? What's wrong? Are you hungry?), and they ignore you unless they need food or attention. And no matter how many times you remove a cat or a baby from an area, if that's where they want to be, they're going right back. The cat is going to sit in the middle of your book, and the baby is going to try to climb the bookcase. Or vice versa.
Communication with a preschooler is a different level of frustration. My daughter will be 4 next week, and has been able to effectively communicate her wants and needs for about 2 years now. She's always been verbally advanced, with a wide vocabulary and very clear speech. Unless she doesn't want you to understand her. Then she adopts a new speech pattern, which sounds pretty much like she is speaking without opening her mouth. She usually saves it up for asking me questions to which the answer is 99% guaranteed to be "no". For example: "Mommy?" (this is the only clear word spoken, so that I am fully aware that she is addressing her mumbles to me) "CanIhavechiwennummesfalooon" Did ya get that? No? Shocking!! And here comes my response:
"I can't understand you. What did you say?"
"CANIHAVECHIWENUMMESFALOOON???" (because raising the volume helps. Like when people yell at non-English speakers. Screaming the words must immediately make them understandable.)
"A, I don't know what you're saying. I can't understand you when you mumble!"
"I'm asking about LUNCH!!!" (suddenly, she speaks as clearly and crisply as James Earl Jones)
"What about lunch?"
"CanIhavechiwenummesfaloon?"
At this point I retreat into a tiny corner of my mind, and scream that high pitched horror movie scream that I'm unable to produce from my throat due to my lower pitched voice. And then I say, "Ok, fine, whatever." And we finally get to the crux of the matter when I serve her a cheese sandwich and carrots for lunch, and she dissolves into tears and says, "I wanted CHICKEN NUGGETS!!" Because clearly she was asking, "Can I have chicken nuggets for lunch?" Obviously. Mom fail. Not really though, because, A. I didn't understand her, and B. the answer would have been "no" had I understood her. But because I gave up trying to figure out what she was saying and gave her a "Fine, whatever", she's now in a position to say that I gave her the wrong lunch. And I'm stuck with a miserable kid who won't eat.
I'm not ashamed to admit that about 50% of the time, I give in and make her chicken nuggets. And the inmates take over the asylum, yet again...;)
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