Randomly

From time to time my kids will use a word in conversation that makes me pause and marvel at how well they grasp the English language.  My mom mentioned to me years ago that she found it interesting that I didn't speak to my kids like they were babies when they were.  From the time they were newborns  I would talk to Madeline or Ellie like they could comprehend those 50 cent words college professors love to see when reading your latest term paper.  My reasoning was simply that they would learn the words and their proper context by hearing them used in everyday  conversation.

When my kids learned to talk I was always delighted to hear them use a word that was commonly used by me but not by others in contact with them.  I recall one time when Bryan pointed out that Madeline liked to use the word splendid (a word he thought I had made up) when describing things she liked at age two.  It made me feel rather splendid that she had learned such a lovely descriptive word from me.

Today as Ellie was eating her after school snack, a delightful little cupcake made by moi this morning, she was telling me about her day.  I was letting her ramble on about her day when she demonstrated that she knew how to use the word randomly in proper context.  She was telling me about how her friend had randomly sat next to her at school today.  This friend likes to sit next to different kids all the time from what she tells me, so I suppose her friend's presumably deliberate action appeared to be a random act in Ellie's mind.

I can't wait to see how their vocabularies expand as they continue to grow.  Who knows, there may come a day when Bryan doesn't understand half of the words they use!