I am terribly tardy in reporting that Porter has – over the last month or two – begun talking. But only if you qualify talking as a semi-intelligible, mono-syllabic, finger-pointing bark delivered with all the delicateness of a drill-seargant. Cwy! (cry) Dwibe! (drive) Kickle! (tickle) are all games that fall under the “I Say Jump, You Say, How High?” category. Where the “I” is Porter and the “You” are the rest of us dim-witted creatures whose job it is to peel his grapes.

Last weekend, while Steve’s parents were here for a visit, they were each subjected to – literally – hours of sitting in the car while Porter flipped every switch and button he could find. This game of Dwibe! is not a new one, and we spend a great amount of energy to keep him out of eyeshot of either car – lest he decide he wants to spend the next 2 hours rearranging the glove-box. Last week, I naively let him go out into the front yard just as Steve was driving up. After enduring 15 minutes of The Angry we finally just put him in the car with the intention of keeping an eye on him while we went in and out of the house. And I guess this is the part of the story where I have to share that, the car was parked on the street in front of our house, and at some point we were both inside the house long enough for our neighbor to walk by and notice a toddler standing in the driver’s seat of an unattended car. Imagine our supreme delight at opening the door to see our sweet grandmotherly neighbor holding our child and looking at us like we were Britney Spears. Yeah, that good.

But you see, this is how we roll these days: Porter tells us what he wants, we acknowledge that we understand what he wants, then he unleashes The Angry when we don’t give him what he wants.

Porter: Standing in front of the open freezer 5 minutes before bedtime, “WAAAAAAKKKKKLLLLLLLE!”
Me: You want waffle?
Porter: Matter-of-factly, “yeah.”
Me: But Buddy, we are all done with dinner. Waffle tomorrow, okay?
Porter: “NOOOOOOOOOO! WAAAAAKKKKKKLLLLE! NONONO!”

And just like that, he is fully prone, face-down on the floor – just me, him and the unattainable bedtime waffles.

For the most part, his vocabulary is based around a set of commands, and so we have been trying very hard to expand it to include the more benign aspects of conversation. For example, we are spending quite a bit of time these days on colors – progress being measured in oddly triumphant milestones. No longer is everything being referred to as “Geen!”, but instead we are now working with the wildly displaced associations of all the colors.

Me: “Porter, what color is this?”
Porter: “Lelow”
Me: “No, blue.”
Me: “Porter, what color is this?”
Porter: “Geen”
Me: “No, Orange.”
Me: “Porter, what color is this?”
Porter: “Wedt”
Me: “No, purple.”
Me: “Porter, what color is this?”
Porter: “Back”
Me: “No, green.”
Me: “Porter, what color is this?”
Porter: “Lelow”
Me: “No, blue.”

Woo Hoo! 0 for 5. I should have asked him to go double or nothing.

I leave you with a photo of Porter in his favorite sweatshirt. This is a sweatshirt that came as part of a set I hastily bought at Ross, not realizing it had a big-rig emblazoned on the back, with the fanciful title of “Highway Haulin”. Once I realized what I had done, I figured I’d just donate the sweatshirt and keep the jeans. Little did I know that this would singularly become the most requested item in his entire wardrobe. He INSISTS on wearing this thing every single day. I have gotten over my embarrassment of sending him to school in his new redneck-inspired ensembles, and have instead decided to embrace our hillbilly roots. I think I lost my right to engage in any elitist behavior right about the time my neighbor felt the need to rescue our child left unattended in a car in front of our house.