Buv

Finn woke us with a moan from his room at 6:30 AM. It’s Saturday after a week of Flu bug passing first from Finn (last Sunday) to Tricia (Tuesday) and finally to me (Thursday). We all stayed home all week and mostly slept and moaned and groaned and the other things that go with Flu.

But this morning’s moan was more energetic—more bellow than moan.

I’ll take care of him all afternoon if you let me sleep-in, Tricia spoke slowly through her post-Flu grog.

Blaaaghh. OK, I re-snorted.

I brought Finn into bed with us, put him on his tummy between us, and rolled over—back to him—and tried to doze. As my lids fell shut I dimly registered wisps of stirred creamy fog sailing by our bedroom window—a ship moving through an offshore bank, so quiet you could hear a gull wing past the bow.

Bird-ie!

The two opposing syllables rang me from my doze. Silence filled the room. I wondered if it was a dream. Then starkly:

Car!

Finn’s voice was clear, like a stream’s crystal burble in early dawn. It had a high, bird’s note, and a deep ker-plunk.

Wee-lay (Finn’s interpretation of Wheel).

My mind raced, trying to blow the fog from my eyes. I finally caught up:

Truck! I said solidly.

Car, he countered quickly.

Wheel. (I said it properly and, in the ensuing pregnant pause I could tell he was smiling because he knows I think it’s funny when he says it.)

Go-dur! (Yogurt.)

Halibut!

Mamma!

Hair!

Noze!

Scratch!

He scratched his nail on the pillow near my ear.

Scatch, he tried. Then a cascade:

Ha-blit! Duggie (the generic term for things like Halibut)! Nanna (banana)! The tempo told me we were on our way to having a complete discussion, in full non sequitur, consisting of Finn’s entire vocabulary, strung together, mind, by phonetic emphasis, humor, and a shared inner picture of the context and whole meaning of each concept.

Apple (I remembered Frost’s pane of glass melting and shattering an orchard of bare apple trees, and I smelled a stiff East Coast October morning and felt cold apple-sticky fingers and hard hands).

Fishie (he jerked me back).

Light (I jerked him back with the first word he ever spoke).

Jackie (the name of the UCSC student who has taught Finn some words).

Book.

Sox! Shuze! Car! Fishie!

It was a request: Breakfast on the Wharf and a viewing of the fisherman and the Sea Lions.

Love, I said.

Silence on his end. Then:

Buv? He asked quietly for a repeat of the new word.

Yes. Love.