Reason # 37 for why moms are so tired

I've heard that people who are in language immersion programs find that they need extra sleep at night.  Something about the constant need to translate everything in one's head, spending extra energy trying to deciper what everyone is saying, makes the brain and body very tired.

It seems unfair then, that just when we moms start to get our babies sleeping regularly, and therefore can begin to reverse the sleep deprivation pattern, we suddenly find that we are now in a language immersion program in our own homes.  These cute little creatures we live with are intent on teaching us Toddlerese, with no English-to-Toddlerese dictionary to refer to.

Once again I find myself in this "program" (how blessed I am that I get this cross-lingual experience for free!), but when I stop to think about it, I realize it must be making me tired.  Now while I have 3 voices all talking at once, ("Mom, I can't find any socks!" "What does 'eerie' mean?" "Why is the freezer door open?") I now also have a little person pulling on my shirt and repeating "Oyn-shuz!  Oyn-shuz!  Oyn-shuz!"  My brain must quickly scramble the translating jets to decode this urgent request before a meltdown happens, while at the same time calculating how much tomato sauce is needed to substitute for tomato juice in the dinner recipe I'm attempting.

Milo's Toddlerese dialect has been the toughest for me to learn of all the kids'.  His pronunciation is.... well, either lacking or subtle, depending on how you look at it.  Context clues are crucial for understanding him.  For example, "ra-ra" can either be "Strider" or "water" depending on the context.  So when he's frantically pointing out the window yelling, "Ra-Ra!  Ra-Ra!" I'm not sure if he's trying to tell me that he likes the pond, or that Strider is in danger, or that Strider is in danger because he's about to fall in the pond. 

And despite the fact that he can pronounce certain words, for some reason he chooses to apply them to different meanings.  So when he says, "nut," it means "milk," while "muk" means "more."  I cannot just depend on my ear here!  Oddly, he can say "Cole" on command, and he can say "Sen," but then when you follow that up with asking him to say, "Cole-sen," he says, quite cheerfully, "NEE-NEE!" (which is what he always calls Colsen.) Needless to say, translating takes some serious work, taking into consideration his context, his code, and his pronunciation.

Meanwhile, he's also trying to school us in some version of Morse Code, I think.  (so considerate of him to try and introduce a third speech pattern to our home).  He will utter series of "aaaah-aah" sounds, and depending on the number of syllables and duration thereof, we will be able to figure out what he wants.  He has signal-codes for "I want that," "I need that right now!" "That looks fun," "I want to be treated just like the other kids," etc.

I'm happy to say that all of the family members are good linguists, at least becoming fluent in Toddlerese (the Milo dialect), and the Milo/Morse code. Still, it does take some extra brain power... and at least in my case, that is in very short supply these days.  So I find that my tired brain and body need more sleep than usual... but that is also in short supply.

By the way, if anyone can decode "oyn-shuz" for us, please let us know.  We'll add it to our lexicon, and that will make future conversations much easier!