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Oh yes, you can hear her doing a mix of parroting and adapting. She was an early talker. I do know that can be a combo of genetics and circumstance, though– my older sister’s firstborn was a super-late talker, to the point that they’d made an appointment with a specialist because they were worried he might be developmentally delayed or that they were missing some physical impairment or other, and then he started talking, and in multi-word phrases right off the bat too– clearly, the apparatus was there, and he was developing just fine, he just somehow didn’t feel the need to put it together. And then mother-in-law casually mentioned that the baby’s dad had talked super late too and had been fine, which, why she hadn’t mentioned that before I don’t know, but–
I mean, it’s different from kid to kid, regardless of how they’re spoken to– but an early talker combined with a lot of company from adults who use sophisticated speech…
It’s funny though, Farmbaby speaks just about as clearly as her cousin, who is two years older than she is. Five-year-old cousin just has unclear little-kid speech, not notably severely impaired or anything, just blurry little-kid stuff with word-substitution mistakes and things. Farmbaby has been a precocious talker ever since she first started. Add in that she’s tall and long for her age, she’s often mistaken for much older than she is, which can be a problem because she’s pretty much otherwise dead-on typical for three, especially in issues of emotional fortitude and such.
Her teachers, at the fancy Montessori pre-k she attends, believe that she’s definitely way ahead, in her brain, of what her body’s capable of, and is always kind of frustrated at not being physically or emotionally capable of keeping up with what her mind wants.
I sort of feel like Niece is the same way; she gets mad when people can’t understand what she’s saying, but she’s also gotten really good at repeating herself and saying things in alternate ways, and just attempting to sheer-force-of-personality her way out of misunderstandings, which is alternately adorable and terrifying.
Ohhh yes, she’s definitely a tiny asshole, on purpose.
The only thing that makes up for the greater deliberateness and precision of her assholery is that she genuinely is more emotionally stable. She has tantrums a little, but she can be reasoned with a lot more, and is a whole lot better at understanding delayed gratification and conditional statements.
I managed to force my way into being in her good graces again, today. I realized that if she ever had the option of her mother, she’d scream for her, but if we were too busy and also not anywhere her mother was, she’d chill. So we did activities all morning, all over the damn place in the car and on foot and so on, and meanwhile, Sister caught up on all her planting and weeding. Late this afternoon, when her regular Thursday afternoon playmate was watching her, Sister and I transplanted out the last few flats of things destined for the flower garden, and I was having problems getting the plants out of the flats. Sister laughed. “That’s because they’re actually at the right stage for planting out, not way overgrown,” she explained. “You’re used to only handling really rootbound transplants. This is what happens when we’re actually caught up on planting.”
I was much slower than her at transplanting, but later when we were putting cookies onto cookie sheets to bake I felt like I redeemed myself; i’m less invested in eating raw cookie dough so I outpaced her pretty convincingly.

Oh yes, you can hear her doing a mix of parroting and adapting. She was an early talker. I do know that can be a combo of genetics and circumstance, though– my older sister’s firstborn was a super-late talker, to the point that they’d made an appointment with a specialist because they were worried he might be developmentally delayed or that they were missing some physical impairment or other, and then he started talking, and in multi-word phrases right off the bat too– clearly, the apparatus was there, and he was developing just fine, he just somehow didn’t feel the need to put it together. And then mother-in-law casually mentioned that the baby’s dad had talked super late too and had been fine, which, why she hadn’t mentioned that before I don’t know, but–
I mean, it’s different from kid to kid, regardless of how they’re spoken to– but an early talker combined with a lot of company from adults who use sophisticated speech…
It’s funny though, Farmbaby speaks just about as clearly as her cousin, who is two years older than she is. Five-year-old cousin just has unclear little-kid speech, not notably severely impaired or anything, just blurry little-kid stuff with word-substitution mistakes and things. Farmbaby has been a precocious talker ever since she first started. Add in that she’s tall and long for her age, she’s often mistaken for much older than she is, which can be a problem because she’s pretty much otherwise dead-on typical for three, especially in issues of emotional fortitude and such.
Her teachers, at the fancy Montessori pre-k she attends, believe that she’s definitely way ahead, in her brain, of what her body’s capable of, and is always kind of frustrated at not being physically or emotionally capable of keeping up with what her mind wants.
I sort of feel like Niece is the same way; she gets mad when people can’t understand what she’s saying, but she’s also gotten really good at repeating herself and saying things in alternate ways, and just attempting to sheer-force-of-personality her way out of misunderstandings, which is alternately adorable and terrifying.
Ohhh yes, she’s definitely a tiny asshole, on purpose.
The only thing that makes up for the greater deliberateness and precision of her assholery is that she genuinely is more emotionally stable. She has tantrums a little, but she can be reasoned with a lot more, and is a whole lot better at understanding delayed gratification and conditional statements.
I managed to force my way into being in her good graces again, today. I realized that if she ever had the option of her mother, she’d scream for her, but if we were too busy and also not anywhere her mother was, she’d chill. So we did activities all morning, all over the damn place in the car and on foot and so on, and meanwhile, Sister caught up on all her planting and weeding. Late this afternoon, when her regular Thursday afternoon playmate was watching her, Sister and I transplanted out the last few flats of things destined for the flower garden, and I was having problems getting the plants out of the flats. Sister laughed. “That’s because they’re actually at the right stage for planting out, not way overgrown,” she explained. “You’re used to only handling really rootbound transplants. This is what happens when we’re actually caught up on planting.”
I was much slower than her at transplanting, but later when we were putting cookies onto cookie sheets to bake I felt like I redeemed myself; i’m less invested in eating raw cookie dough so I outpaced her pretty convincingly.
