Comparable and Corresponding

Before he could speak, Andrew signed. First it was just the few trendy words that everyone who was anyone was teaching their babies. Signs for 'more', 'drink', 'cookie' ,'please' and 'thank you' were the first to enter his vocabulary. But as it became apparent that his spoken language was not developing according to the norm I stepped up the education in signing. I bought books and videos, attended classes and spent time at the sign language sites online. His abilities grew exponentially and soon he was saying/signing dozens of words and phrases. For my part, my signing vocabulary, a step ahead of his included hundreds of signs. Mostly nouns, to help him assign names to the things he saw, but also the adjectives and the verbs so he could also tell us the hilarities of his life, like when he farted! Around here the only thing better than doing it is being able to say you did it. My eldest at this age, (also a boy) used to say "pardon my bum" after he passed a little wind, which just cracked him up royally. Andrew's pattern would be the sign for fart and then the sign for surprise followed by a loud giggle. Oh, boys!

Once language arrived, the signs slowly were replaced with words. One by one the signs dropped away as speech emerged. The best part of his developing skills was his hilarious insistence on speaking in the opposite. For a time we called him Antonym Andrew because no matter what was said, his retort would be the reverse. I must mention, he acquired this ability on his own, as no one ever trained him in the lingo of contrariness, well, not on purpose anyway.

We noticed the propensity beginning with this conversation with his sister one Saturday morning. Big brother Ian was playing a game on the PlayStation; Emma was lounging on the couch. Andrew was sitting alongside Ian in front of the television with the second PlayStation controller in his lap. It was becoming painfully obvious to him that his controls were not working properly. Indeed, they were not even plugged in.

Andrew turned to Emma and said, "Take it on".

She patiently explained "Andrew you don't say 'take it on', that doesn't make sense. You can say 'take it off' or you could say 'put it on'."

To which he replied "Put it off".

And thus we launched into the phase of language development wherein he said it his own way, thank you very much.

If we said "pick it up" he said "pick it down";

If we said "take this out" he said "take this in";

If we said "put it in" he said "put it out".

The ultimate triumph in his contradictory speech came the day he shadowed his sister as she walked up the stairs to the second floor of our home. She was quietly singing a Bob Marley tune (could I be any prouder?) as she mounted the steps.

"get up, stand up..." she sang as she climbed.

And on her tail, without missing a beat in the rhythm, Andrew intoned behind her,

"get down, sit down..."

I fell over laughing. Or did I stand there crying?
Who really could say?