It’s a source of great frustration, understandably so – you wish to make a perfectly straightforward point but the two main words of the message turn into a tongue twister.

There’s always the usual advice – slow down, close your eyes, take a deep breath – amongst others, but that’s no good when the information is important and the syllables bounce and buoy around in all the wrong directions.

It’s tempting to simplify – why can’t he just say:-

My rival is in a battle

Or simpler still:-

My guy is in a fight.

Why torture a speech delay with extra syllables? All the meltdowns could be avoided if we could just give up and go for the easier option.

It’s painful to watch someone struggle to communicate – when youthful enthusiasm is foiled so frequently we need to take a different tack, something to nail those points in place.

“Is it…?”
“Is what dear?”
“It is…unusual?”
“Is what unusual?”
“It is ….unusual dirt behind your ears?”
“Yes it is. Most people have a shower every day and scrub behind their ears. Especially if they live in a hot country like California.”
“That’s a lie.”
“!”
“California is not a country it’s a State.”
“How true.”

**

Later, when we’ve trucked back home after a quiet and productive afternoon.

“My! That’s very sophisticated.”
“I am made it with my Legos.”
“I can see. It’s taken you a long time to make that articulated lorry. Very patient. Well done.”
“What it is?”
“What is what dear?”
“Dah word that you are saying of?”
“Articulated. Sorry, I meant…”
“No.”
“No?”
“Dah other word?”
“Er…lorry?”
“Yes. It is being your English word isn’t it.”
“Sorry I forgot. I meant truck – honestly.”

Summer holidays give us time for other pursuits:-

Scaredy Blob’s Adventures on U-Tube

All this technology makes my head hurt but I can’t allow such triflings to stifle their creativity.

After many tortuous years, our annual holiday to England, becomes easier. We have finally reached the point where my country of birth is not longer ridiculed, mocked and loathed – or at least somewhat less so. They have been won over by a few of the finer features of British life, some resurrected from the mists of time for purely artificial purposes. Archaic practices such as ‘afternoon tea,’ are welcomed. Without the actual tea, it’s a winner. A box of indulgent shop bought cakes and other nefarious dalliances. No more hand-made, wafer thin cut slices of cucumber, pre-soaked in wine vinegar with the lightest dusting of white ground peppercorns and crust-less bread, cut into triangles. I know I’m beat, primarily due to their fake, but very realistic, vomit noises – gems before minors. But we’ve made progress in other areas:-

“Tell me one new thing that you like about England?”

“I am be love dah pink meringues.”

“Great! Anything else?”

“England respects lions.”

“Oh the joys of Longleat Safari Park!” But that’s the thing about a speech delay—we bimble along the usual pathways, only to be pounced on and decimated by one perfect sentence. Frosting, glitter and sprinkles on an otherwise quite ordinary existence.

“And? Can you think of anything else? A third?”

“I am be love dah chutz.”

“Chutz? What’s a chutz? I don’t think I remember anything called a chutz?”

“They be chutz are wooden things.”

“What kind of a wooden thing?”

“Large… no small wooden things with painted.”

“Hmm. Give me another clue?”

“They are be big enough for a body to be inside.”

“A box. A coffin? Do you mean coffin? No you can’t mean that. I’d remember if we’d seen a coffin. Another clue please.”

“Sigh…No. Dey are be on the sand.”

“Shell? Rock?”

“No. No.”

“I give up.”

“It is be…for peoples.”

“Ice-cream cones, hampers, coolers?”

“No. No. No. It is be…for peoples who are be on dah beach.”

“A wooden…spade? Deck chair? Parasol? Windbreak?”

“No. No. No. No. Dey are be in dah wooden thing with paint.”

“People in wooden painted things on the beach?”

“Yes… you sayed they were be for peoples to be out of the rains.”

“I did? The rains? Ooo, you mean beach huts.”

Clearly my diction needs brushing up.

It’s so easy to count to four.

“Um.  I don’t think I’ve ever made one.”

“You are make dem?”

“I can try.  We’ll look it up on the web and make virgin ones.”

“Only one?”

“No several.  Maybe alcoholic ones for us grown ups and non-alcoholic or virgin ones for you youngsters.  Can’t be that difficult.”

“There are being two kinds of Margaritas?”

“I think there are lots of different kinds but they’re not really my kind of a thing.”

“But you are like them?”

“What’s not to like?  Are they traditional for Americans on Independence Day?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you learn that?  I’d have thought they were more Mexican than American?”

“No dats Mexican Hats.”

“I don’t think anyone will be wearing a Mexican Hat in the street parade.”

“You are not being wearing a Mexican Hat.”

“No I’m not going to be wearing a Mexican Hat.”

“No!  Nobody is wearing a Mexican Hat!”

“It’s o.k.  I’m not arguing with you.  I’m agreeing with you.  You’re right no-one will be wearing a Mexican Hat.”

“I am not want to talk about Mexican Hats.  I am want to be talking about margaritas.”

“I thought we’d already sorted out the margaritas?”

“No.”

“No?  What have we left out?”

“I’m gonna wear the Margaritas and the other people are gonna be wearing the two other colors.”

“What other colors?  What do you mean ‘wear?’”

“I’m gonna decorate my hat with Margaritas coz they are being white.  You’re gonna wear Mexican Hats coz they are being red and we need a blue flower too.”

“Ah! Marguerites!  The flower, not the booze.”

My children like many other people’s children, rarely, if ever, volunteer information about how their day went -  it’s like pulling teeth, but every once in a while they go all verbal on me.

“D’ya know what mum?”

“What dear?”

“Today we had science.”

“Did you indeed.  And what did you learn?”

“We learneded about the male body.”

“Ah.  What did you learn about the male body?”

“Males are different from females.”

“How true.”

“We learneded how males differ from females.”

“How interesting.  Maybe we should talk about this after dinner.”

“D’you know the biggest difference is being?”

But he’s on a roll.

“I do,  like I said, later.”

He’s unstoppable.

“Females are different from males because they don’t have a bladder.”

“!”

After parking on the drive my daughter tells me that on my next birthday, she will be buying me a lifetime’s supply of earplugs, minus my current fifty years.

Which is when I hear the boys:-

“What is it, a bird?”

“Not a bird, they said beard.”

“What is a beard?”

“A beard is hair on your chin.”

“What’s hair under your nose being?”

“A moustache.”

“Like Mario?”

“Yes –  but you can have both, a beard and a moustache, that’s called a combo.”

And the earplugs?  Not a rush job.

My son calls from the back seat,
“What’s it mean?”
“You tell me, you’ve been singing it for seven minutes now.”
“No, the other?”
“The other what dear?”
“Robert Firmly.”
“Do you mean who is Robert Firmly? I don’t think I know anyone by that name. How did you meet him? School?”

I notice a great deal of friction coming from behind me as the car vibrates, and commuter traffic fills every inch of the road in all directions.

“No. I mean what does it mean, Robber Firmly?”
“Robber? Someone’s a thief?”
“No.”

I ignore the shudders in the car and keep my eye on the police car as it cruises down the hard shoulder with the lights flashing and siren blaring.

“Where did you see this…er…Robber Firmly?” I ask as another wave of shudders rock the car and an ambulance takes the same route as the police car before it.

“I don’t know,” he says.
“O.k. – try me again.” A fire truck comes bowling along to make up the threesome as the doors seem to judder and I notice the rear view mirror quivers.
“Rabbit Firmly.”
“It’s no good. I haven’t got a clue. Try again.”

After a hefty sigh because his patience is wearing thin, as well it might, he gives it one more shot, “Rubbit Firmly,” he articulates with great clarity and just enough volume. I check back over my shoulder, just a quick peek to see him holding a Bakugan ball- a toy – in one hand while the other whizzes back and forth in a blur.

“What are you doing to that ball?”
“I’m rubbin it so the secret code will be revealed.”
“Ah! So you’re rubbing it firmly. Of course.”
“I know rubbin but I don’t know firmly.”
“Well that’s easily explained,” I sigh with relief, “firm is like hard.”

I wonder how it is that he can know ‘reveal,’ whilst ‘firmly,’ remains a mystery, because splinter skills are fascinating? The traffic begins to disperse, we pick up speed, commuters funnel on through and we glide off at the next exit.

He leans forward and grabs my chair, either side, “I’m gonna tell it to your face” he says, to the back of my head, “Good job Mom – you got there in the end.”

My daughter peeks out at me from a curtain of hair, ear-buds firmly in place, so she yells in a friendly manner, “Wouldya like me to finish him off for you?”

“!”

“I mean…shall I help him with the last ones?”

“Would you dear?”

I can’t disguise the leaking pleading in my voice to my twelve year old.

“Sure. You make supper I’m starvin. And I am so sick of salad.”

What a deal.

What a break.

My savior, and dinner’s salvation.

Time to cook.

I beat about the kitchen but I can’t help but earwig as she takes charge, loudly, as her approach differs markedly from my own – it’s amazingly effective as she tells him how it is.

“Stop shoutin 4 x 7 over an over again! You know it alrighty. You know them all already. Y’just need to shut up and listen to yur brain.”

They sit on the sofa together; she – relaxed with soft open limbs – he – knotted like a pretzel, eyes squeezed shut, teeth bared, laboring to lay an egg, willing the answers to come. It’s agonizing, and that’s just the watching.

I stop watching and annihilate the potatoes.

I listen as her voice takes on a maniacal tone, “Just imagine that each answer is a tiny little chick and if you get the answer wrong…… the chick DIES!”

I drop the potato masher and dash into the family room, aghast, as my son tumbles off the sofa to writhe on the carpet. I open my mouth to speak and notice that he’s chortling, tears of silent laughter. I look to my daughter – “It’s o.k. Mom – it’s his favorite quote from the Simpsons.”

Her younger brother, the only free agent, is always sympathetic to those with physical impairments, so he pipes up.

“Why is she?” as he pirouettes in the kitchen, because constant frenetic movement is an aid to speech production.
“Slept in a draught I suspect.”
“It gave her wind?” he asks, as he throws himself onto one counter and then bounces off the next, pin ball style.
“Um… no but it was a bit windy in the cabin so that’s probably why her neck hurts now.”
“Why she has it?” he says, pogoing the entire length of the kitchen, first forwards then backwards.
I try and think of other ways of packaging the essential elements of the message – sleep in draught, neck exposed to the cold, camping cabin chilly – but I’m struggling… “Er… she..the muscle…”
“No. Why she burps a lot?” he adds in time with his full-body jumping-jacks.
“I don’t think she does much, not by comparison to you two at any rate.”
“But the pill?” he continues, spin to the right, stop, spin to the left, stop.
“The pill is for pain.”
“They don’t make you burp a lot?” he says swinging his head down between his parted legs to speak to me upside down, his hair brushing the floor like an upside down cuckoo from his clock.
“She doesn’t have indigestion she has a pain in the neck.” The emphasis is purely accidental.
“Oh.” He stops abruptly, as if I stole his key. Clearly my tone is too sharp and windy with irritation.
“But it says,” he bleats as he peers at the jar, “Oopsie. Oh no it doesn’t,” he whispers. “Never mind!” he yells at fifty decibels charging from the room.

But I catch him mid dash, “it doesn’t what?”
“I thought it said ‘I burp often,’” but now I see it doesn’t.”
I turn the label around, run my eye over it again, “Hmm…yes, I can see how you might mis-read Ibuprofen.”