Verbal Gerbil

"What's that? What's that sound?" Will says now, all the time.

He touches his hair and says, "Getting soooo long."

In the bathtub, he informs us that he "need to wash froggy's hair."

I'll say, "You have two stuffed animals in here," and he'll say, "Three animals...even!"

His blueberry waffle is a tugboat--then it's a rocketship.

"Airplane just like rocketship," he observes.

To his little brother, he says, "Finny, you are standing!"

"Daddy, you...bring...laptop! Take...lunch bag!" he reminds his father every morning. "Wonder where Daddy is," he muses while Dave is at work.

"Mommy rub Will back," and "Mommy sing...ONE! more song," were frequent refrains at bedtime--before the big boy bed made its debut and we established that 8 o'clock means his eyes are closed.

"I want ICED tea!" he'll proclaim, laughing at his own joke.

"Backhoe! Backhoe!" he'll shout, then whimper when it's out of sight.

"Want different diaper," he'll announce. "Read other book."

But my favorite is one of his most recent language experiments.

The other day, I called out in a warning tone: "Hey, Bubba!"

Will turned around to look at me from under his baseball cap. "Yes, Mom?" he hollered back.

He's said it ever since, every time I call out to him--even once when I yelled for him to stop running as he approached a driveway.

"Yes! Mom!" he answered obediently, without the question mark at the end. I don't know where he gets this old-soul persona from, but it sort of knocks the wind out of me.