Gotham Diary:
Say Five Sound(s)
16 November 2012
Last night, we went down to Alphabet City to babysit. Before she and Ryan went out, Megan observed that Will is making a real effort to speak in intelligible sentences, and urged us to try very hard to understand what he was trying to say. We did our best, but no matter how many times I got him to repeat something that he said when he climbed up on his bed behind and around me (I was sitting on the edge), all I could make out was “say five sounds.” When his parents came home, we ran this by them, and they recognized it at once. “Safe and sound.” A perfectly reasonable thing to say in the vicinity of blankets and pillows.
Because we were bringing a few presents for his mother’s birthday, which we missed because we were all under the weather, Kathleen insisted on having something for Will, too. As it happened, I was having lunch with Ray Soleil, so, after that, we went to the toy shop near Lexington Avenue. I was instantly bewildered by the array of crap, but Ray zeroed in on a range of cool car puzzles called Automoblox. Ray suggested going with the bargain box of three-for-the-price-of-two, but I felt that that was a lot of toy for what was essentially to be a consolation prize, and also I wanted to know whether Will would like them. He certainly liked the one that I bought him, pulling it apart and putting it together all evening long. The difficulty for me was that he liked stripping the tires best of all, without any corresponding desire to snap them back on. Now, Will’s room is very neat — unless he’s playing in it. The little tires, I feared, would get lost in the shuffle. An inner voice said, “So what?” But it was not a very strong voice, and my piteous voice begged Will to pick up the tires so that I could play with them. Healthy young man that he is, he was deaf to these entreaties.
At one point, he retreated into his favorite hidey-hole, the space behind the headboard of his bed, and thrust his hands, monster-like, and with a great deal of growling coming from his invisible head, through the slats. Actually, at first he seemed to think that brandishing one hand was sufficient, but we were much more scared when he was coaxed into deploying the other as well.
***
As soon as we got home, Kathleen reminded me of something that we discovered years ago: we both grew up hearing the phrase “for all intents and purposes” as “for all intensive purposes.” Not precisely what Will did, but very close; in both cases, “ive” was substituted for “and.” Come to think of it, I’ve never heard Will use a conjunction.