Girl Talk

Girl Talk

Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper/Scheswig Leader Thursday, August 3, 2006

More than most men, I’ve had to build up my filters, almost an immunity, you might say to young-female verbal expression. Don’t get me wrong, I hope I’m not more chauvinistic, but I imagine I’m not less so than other guys. But either way I end up having to hear a lot more of it than other guys.

For those of you who didn’t know it or don’t remember, I- straight, middle aged, all American regular guy coach both middle school and high school cheerleading. And I have for about 12 years. But more meaningful than that, for about half those years I’ve listened to my own little girls.

Having daughters has always meant having pink clothes and Barbie dolls, but this summer we painted their rooms. Now their mom assures me that Ellen’s room is magenta and Grace’s room is lavender, but even with a college degree in Art they both look pink to me. One’s a reddish pink and one’s a purplish pink. All I know is that back when there was only one of them, I had a room with my junk where I could watch baseball, now half my house is pink.

But it’s the talk that confounds me more than their taste in décor. Teenagers will talk about boys, their parents, music, clothes, make-up, each other, you get the idea. My girls are 18 months, 4 and 7. They don’t always have the best luck communicating with each other, let alone with we adults.

Grace, our oldest is finally emerging as a conversationalist. When she was 18 months, she’d jabber away (saying nothing we could understand) and we couldn’t wait until she could speak for real. When she was two, we couldn’t wait, and when she was three…and four. After countless trips to doctors and therapists and specialists and consults and exams and tests it was determined that Grace suffered from a developmental disorder called dysarthria. It didn’t effect her brain at all, but her nerves and muscles were effected in that she’d less coordinated and lacks much of the fine motor control that other people take for granted. It hasn’t slowed her down intellectually or academically, but obviously it’s been a barrier socially. But time, speech therapy and practice have all helped her make great strides in communicating. Maybe more than we bargained for.

I always anticipated sighs and complaints from my kids once they reached adolescence. In fact that’s one of the most frightening things that students and cheerleaders can say to you- “Mr. Mallory, what will you do if your kids turn out like us?” But, I had no idea that Grace would start talking like a teenager before she even hit second grade.

I don’t know how many times she’s said to me, exacerbated, “Da-a-ad, don’t worry,” or “I know Da-a-ad, I KNOW.” I don’t know when my one-syllable nickname turned into a three or four syllable complaint. Then there’s, “You TOLD me already.”

Worst of all is this one- “I just want my privacy!”

Ellen, our 4 year old pretty much has only two speeds, high and off. That goes for her mouth too. She makes up lyrics to her own songs. In fact, she recently announced to me that she wants to be a country music singer like the ones on CMT. I’m sure glad we don’t have MTV on our cable system.

This middle-child is the one who serves us up the “but everyone else gets to,” and “I NEVER get to have any fun,” and the every popular “I hate this dinner.”

But we did get a big kick out of her after we’d redecorated in pink. She said to her mom, “Mom, do you know what I love?…” what honey?… “MY ROOM!”

Anyone who’s had two daughters knows that the talking never ends and occasionally can get pretty heated. “Fine, I’m just not going to play with you anymore, and I’m not going to be your sister anymore!” “Fine! And I’m never going to play with you again and I’m going to run away so I never have to see you again!” So? Fine! Fine! Go AWAY! FINE, I will! Fine, just leave me alone!

Pretty soon these sort of exchanges leads to this “Da-a-ad, she’s bugging me, Da-a-ad, she won’t leave me alone, Da-a-ad she says she gets to ride the but to our game, but she’d not on the team ‘cause she’s too little and we don’t even ride a bus, but she won’t listen to me and she won’t go out of my room and I told her to just leave me alone!!!” Etc. Etc.

Occasionally I’m not the only one syllable name to get stretched- “Mo-o-om, can you help me?”

“Your Mom’s on the phone with someone honey, can I help you? What do you need?”

“Not you Dad, I sa-a-id Mo-o-om, I want Mo-o-om.”

So far Annamarie, the baby hasn’t been drawn into any verbal scraps yet with the other two. In fact, so far the word she seems to use most is “this.” Sometimes “this” means, “can I have this?” or “I want this” or “can you open this?” or “do YOU want some of this?” It’s pretty interesting. Some people think of me as a writer and I’m not even sure what part of speech “this” is. Is “this” a preposition? Seems like it’s sort of like a noun.

Her first word, I’m proud to say was “Dad,” but of course at the time “Dad” referred not necessarily to me but to anything that is now “this.” Last night she was calling me “Mom.” She’s at that stage where once in a while we’ll SWEAR she said something but we aren’t sure, of course, she’s too independent to repeat anything like some trained bird doing tricks, so we can never confirm anything we think she’s said.

Just the other day I could’ve SWORE she said “Why did they send that Neanderthal Bolton to the UN when he doesn’t even believe in the legitimacy of the institution and we’re in such precarious times that require sophisticated diplomacy more than ever?”

Okay, you’re right, I made that up. It was more like her Grandma thought she pointed to the door and said “go outside, please?”

But I definitely KNOW that whenever I have any ice cream she walks up to me and clearly asks “some? Some?”