From the mouth of babes

I'm always amazed at how when my children say something, it so much cuter than if I said it. Why do we lose our speech cuteness factor with age?

Aiden is pretty much on the same verbal track as his other two brothers. He says only a couple of distinguishable words, and the rest is jibber jabber and grunts. The words are "un-tah" (Hunter), which is what he calls both Hunter and Devan, and ah-choo, which is part of a pretend sneezing game he likes to play. As with the other boys, I am once again worried as I see that other babies his same age have a much larger vocabulary. But then I try to be patient and wait for the day when the language chip in his brain suddenly activates and the words come pouring out.

Devan's L-chip finally went into full gear during the past year, largely due to his nursery and preschool experiences. I am loving it and trying to take mental recordings of all the fun proliferations. When you add to it the substitution of W sounds for L and R sounds, it's absolutely precious. Hearing "I wub you mom" and "I want ceweal" just causes me to giggle.

Then you have Hunter. Since his L-chip activated, he has spoken like he's an adult. However, at times he has to be reminded that his quantity of speech really needs to be reduced (primarily at the dinner table so that he can successfully nourish himself).