Lost in Translation

My husband comes home from work only to be bombarded by the 2yr old boy and 4yr old girl. He gets into the house everyone calms down, and the 2yr old follows him around saying the same thing. Does he realize it, no. Why, because he can't understand it. Then I say, "hey James, he is trying to talk to you." He says, "really." Then he actually listens, and pretends to know what he said, responds with and "that's awesome" or "great" or an "okay" then proceeds to take his shoes off, and relax from work. The boy could have said, "I licked the floor," "I bit my sister," "I ate a slug," etc... The possibilities are endless.

I think as a mother, we are official translators to the family. That is our job. I know some who don't want to leave there kids with there husbands for fear they can not understand them. Luckily my daughter translates for him too. Now, both my kids are typical kids. There are no speech delays or developmental issues. The 2yr old is just in the language explosion phase of development. Some things come out garbled and mumbled. It happens to the best of us. But translation issues can happen at any age. Have you heard teenage boys talk on the phone! Seriously! I can barely understand them. But someone can. I think kids have there own language for a while. And even when they do learn "English" I think they are bilingual. It starts with English, then Pig-Latin, now we are seeing the language of texting. I don't even know what half those acronyms mean anyways.

As a mother, I am beginning to think that I will always be lost in translation with my kids. Between my husband and I we can decipher a fair amount of what the 2yr old says, but there is still a lot that gets lost. That goes for the 4yr old too. So I will accept it now, before they are teenagers and do not want to talk to me. Kids and parents have different languages. We share English, and the rest is a great big guess. I will probably always be lost in translation.