Complicated

Sam has been saying tons of new things this week. It's been a veritable language explosion.

Maybe part of that has been brought on by his sister's discovery of sound and words.

Maybe he has just decided that he is now ready to focus on this skill.

Either way, it's pretty cool to hear his voice. It's sort of a tiny version of a man's voice...much lower than I ever would have imagined.  I think that somewhere, in my naive (and sometimes ignorant) mind, I always envisioned that when he started to use words his voice would match the 'developmental age' of early communication.

I thought he would sound more like a baby.

But he doesn't.

He sounds like an almost four year old boy.

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Today, I heard him say his name for the first time.  It came out, loud and slightly slurred, in a momentous feat of verbalism: "SCH-AM!" "SCH-AM!"

My body frozen. My heart stopped.

My son said his name.

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In his beautiful boy-soprano voice, my son said his name.

I closed my eyes to take it in, when suddenly I heard behind me: "ZAM!" "ZAM"

That was no boy's voice.

My mind must be playing tricks of me.

It was the baby voice of my dreams!

"ZAM!" "ZAM!"

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She looks up at me, glowing. Radiant even. She knows what she's done.

She has said a new word. Her brother's name.

She is proud.

I am proud.

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Her voice is just as I imagined it would be.

Just as I imagined his would be.

That voice, a reminder of the baby that I have.

And the baby that I have lost to time and age.

Soon, she won't be a baby any longer. She will be a girl.

And her voice will change.

Just like his did.

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Happy.

Proud.

Sad.

Nostalgic.

Conflicted.

Convicted.

Confused.

How can it be that the human heart can feel so much all at the same time, and not explode?