Eamon to English Dictionary

Many of you who I see on frequent basis are familiar with my thinly veiled anxiety about my son's lack of coherent speech. I continually compare him to his sisters and I know that is not fair. I truly remember Madeline talking as she crawled. And she walked at 10 months. I remember worrying about Sawyer because she starting talking in sentences later than Madda- at 14 months. My 21-month old son is barely understandable to anyone except for me. Granted, the kid had ear infections from 12 months through 18 months, and I reason that if you cannot hear, you cannot talk. Critical language development is happening in that window and I understand that Eamon has some catching up to do. I try to stay calm and to realize that if there were a real problem, that my pediatrician would have sent us to speech therapy. Nonetheless, I worry. To alleviate some anxiety and hopefully generate a couple good laughs (from myself and my lovely readers), I am going to write an Eamon to English Dictionary below. I will not be completing this task in alphabetical order.


Mommy = Mama
Daddy= Da-da
Madda = Da-da
Sawyer = Da-da (with the faintest "er" sound in the second "da")
Dora = Da-da (sometimes an "r" sound in included, making it Da-ra)
There it is = Da-da-da (correct inflection)
Peek-a-boo = Da-da-da (again, correct voice tone and inflection)
(is anyone else starting to see a pattern here?)
Car = Cah
Ball = Bah
Pop-Pop = Pa-Pa
Papaw = Pa-Pa
Doggie = Dah-key (weird nasal sound included)
Outside = Da-da
More = Mah
Bubbles = Buh-buh
Pop Pa = pa-pa
Truck = Cuck

There are many more lovely pronunciations from my son. Most of them, as you can imagine sound like "Da-Da." It is really funny how much we worry about our kids. We tend to overestimate how much influence we have over who they are and what they do. Of course, parents do have some control. We can choose what we expose them to. We try our best. Nonetheless, a wise therapist once told me that we tend to think children are much more malleable than they actually are. I am starting to believe that our children come with a somewhat preset developmental tract/personality/temperament and that we have only a fraction of control over it, as compared to what we would like. Eamon will talk when he is ready. He will certainly speak as soon as all of the developmental factors necessary are in place. He will talk when his sisters and his overbearing mother stop babying him and talking for him. He will talk regardless of whether I name/identify every single person/item/animal/weather system/toy etc. in the entire house five million times. It is there. I just need to be patient and wait for the factors necessary to present themselves. Until then, I'll be here counting and obsessing about the number of words and animal sounds he has in his repertoire. What's your worry about your wonderful offspring? I'd love to hear what you obsess about unnecessarily.