Shannon Phillips

Robin’s at the age where he often reflects our own words and actions back to us. Sometimes this is sweet. Yesterday I knocked the soap dish onto the floor (where it shattered) and Robin came running in to see what had happened. “Are you okay? Are you okay?” he asked. Immediately I realized: this is what I do to him! Whenever there’s a crash from the other room, I come running and the first thing I ask is: “Are you okay?” So Robin has determined that this is what you do when you hear a crash.

“I’m fine, little man, thanks for asking,” I said.

Sometimes the mirroring is not so sweet. Robin also has developed the habit of shouting, randomly but with great glee, “God dammit!” So now we are engaged in some fancy verbal footwork, trying to convince him that what we say is “Gosh darn it,” and that shouting “Gosh darn it” is waaaayyyy more fun than trifling with the third commandment—or second to the Catholics; I have just this minute learned from Wikipedia that parsing the Ten Commandments is not at all straightforward. Who knew! Anyway, we already have enough trouble with the fact that Robin pronounces the “tr” sound as if it were an F, and that he really likes to talk about trucks.

Davy likes to practice mirroring too. Smile at him, and he’ll smile at you. Coo at him and he’ll coo at you. Tickle him, and he’ll chortle with glee and wave his chubby arms and legs in the air. Okay, that one’s not mirroring, but it’s still a lot of fun.