Say something...anything...seriously

For what seems like every moment of my day, I hear "da da di?" coming from my little explorer's mouth. You see, while the G-man may love working on his gross motor skills and was on the earlier side of get up and go, his vocabulary and language skills are still at the starting gate. So his go-to phrase are the three little 'words' he loves to hear: da da di!

I have no idea what this means. Sometimes, he says it desperately, getting louder as he frantically gestures towards the window. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it freakin' Superman?! I don't know. And I feel bad about that. 

He's trying so hard to communicate; in fact, he's "talking" all the time. Constant chatter is his full-time hobby. It amazes me that he has so much to say. I hear "da da di?" throughout our entire walk, a little hand thrusting out from the stroller as he tries to direct my attention. I simply name everything we are passing and agree with him. What am I agreeing to? Is he getting a pony? 

I just want a word. A real word with a real meaning. A couple of months ago, we thought we had it. I was holding a banana, signing banana, Scott was saying banana, and we both swear, he said...banana! Oh, happy day! We rushed to the baby book and dutifully wrote it down. The proud parents, a wandering toddler and a banana. We haven't heard it, or anything else, since. 

(Last week at Gymboree, two people reported hearing him say "Gymbo" - the name of the clown mascot - but alas, I missed it and the alleged feat has not yet been repeated.)

I saw on mamapedia that there are a lot of non-talkers his age, but some of them at least are chatting it up with their parents. Not even "mama" and "dada" have made it out from his lips. Oh sure, he says the syllables over and over, but not to us. Unless he thinks the activity table gave birth to him, I'm pretty sure he just likes making the noise.

Oh, and the noise. He adores the phone. In the beginning, it was simply pressing buttons and making prank calls from atop the changing table. Then he added conversations, holding the phone up to his ear. He even does the pauses like a real exchange is happening. Now, everything is a phone. The remote. A handheld game. A spoon. A toy car. Up to his ear it goes and a stream of babble erupts for the next 20 minutes. He must not have clear reception because sometimes he has to yell. And yet, the tone of his voice and the surety of what he is saying leads me to believe he can talk. Just in Italian.

As the day goes on and "da da di?" is bored into my brain, I long to know what he's saying. Is he asking me a question? Is he telling me the cats are plotting an escape attempt? Can he really be that fascinated with seeing a van drive down the street? Guessing is getting exhausting.

Of course, it's got to be so frustrating for him, too. Today I took him to Whole Foods. I like to visit there and show him the produce, talk about colors, let him feel the textures, and then drop a paycheck on the few items we pick up along the way. Well, he was in the cart and repeating "da da di?" over and over. I played along. Yes, that's cheese. There's some crackers. Look at the people shopping. That's soup over there. And he's getting frantic because obviously, I am a moron. As I stepped in front of him to push the cart, he pushed me away instead. What? There is nothing behind me, except the soup. And then, our savior. A white knight appeared next to me with...G-man's pacifier. I didn't even realize he'd had it in the store, much less that he had dropped it and it had bounced away behind me. This good samaritan either saw it happen or spoke toddler-ease for there it was. Thank you, kind sir, in so many ways. 

He proceeded to drop it again three more times but this time I was on to him. At last, for those brief, shining moments, I knew what he was saying.