A Shorty Says... What?

The two Littlest Beauties went to my friend Laura's house to play this morning while Chris and I went to a meeting. When I got back to pick them up, Laura commented to me on how communicative Shorty is getting lately. She hasn't got a lot of words, but she gets her meaning across, through various means. And she's very polite too... 'please' and 'thank you' are becoming key parts of her (less than extensive) vocabulary. I'm not quite sure how, but the child has manners. And bless Laura for noticing what we've been hoping was the case all along. Shorty can talk, even if she can't talk very well, just yet.

We've been working with her for ages on baby sign language, which I really believe has helped bridge any gap that existed in our efforts to communicate with her. She can say more, please, eat, and milk in signs, and she is learning more words and signs everyday. Her frustration levels seem to be minimal even though her verbal pronunciation is nearly impossible to decipher out of context. But, still, I think she's getting there. Our favorite things that she says (verbally) are "Lub u" (love you), "day u" (thank you) and "ah wah eye eem" (I want ice cream).

So... in her communicative-but-mostly-non-verbal way, Shorty brought me a book to read to her this afternoon. And by mostly non-verbal communication, I mean that she chucked the book at my head while shouting "boooooo". After the requisite lecture on the relative inappropriateness of chucking books at people, as well as a request for a "please" from her, I agreed to read the book and she plopped down next to me. And wouldn't you know that the book was not in English, although it did happen to be translated in the margins? I started reading the English translation to her. Moomintroll's bucket is BLUE. Snork Maiden lends him a YELLOW shovel.

SLAM!

The book closed on my fingers. So, just for fun, I read the title to her in the book's published language: Finnish. It must have made a lot more sense to her that way because she somehow made me read the whole book to her (four times) in Finnish.

Does that count as communication?

Note: I do not speak Finnish. I studied it once a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Suffice it to say that if there had been any Finnish persons present during my oration of 'Moomintroll's Colors', they would have been mortally offended. My sincerest apologies to Finns everywhere.