Things Nathaniel says

The final installment of this series focuses on my youngest nephew, Nathaniel Qi-en "Baby" Melville. (I'm not sure if "Qi-en" is the proper spelling, since I've actually never seen it written, but I'm going to use it until someone tells me it's another spelling. It's pronounced "chee-UN.")

The first time I met Baby was in December 2010, but he was less than a year old and he was sick, so he didn't do any talking.

Then I didn't get to see him again for another year. On December 29, 2011, we brought David's family home from the airport and were sitting in our living room. I held out my arms, and we were all pleasantly surprised when Baby came running over to me and let me pick him up and put him on my lap. He started "talking" to me. Only it wasn't really talking. He just went "Wehhhh." It was really cute. He pointed to the decorative ornament lights on the fireplace that changed colors, and went, "Wehhh." Whereas Preston spoke his own language when he was a toddler and it was obvious he knew what he was saying, it seemed to me that Nathaniel was talking just for the sake of talking--he didn't actually know what he was saying. The next day we went to the natural history museum at the U. I held him, and he kept saying "Wehhh" throughout the museum. First he pointed to dinosaur skulls, so I thought he was "talking" about the dinosaurs. But then later he pointed to pictures of Utah archaeology, pictures that weren't particularly interesting, so I don't think he was really trying to say anything.

He did say more than just "wehhh." He incessantly watched a YouTube video with puppets singing an "Uh huh" song, and he would sing along with it:

(When I recorded this, my batteries died before he finished, so I barely missed him singing the whole song.)

He also picked up Allie's name, and he would say "goggy" for "doggy." He overextended "goggy" to refer to our cat, and if he saw the cat, he would say, "Uh oh, goggy!" He would sometimes say other names on demand, but he would say them without initial consonants. Lack of consonants has been Baby's trademark, even up to today.

I saw him again in June 2012. They were stopping at our house before continuing on to California. On that visit, he came up the stairs and saw my cousin Peter and said, "You inky!" Peter said, "No, you're stinky!" That was the first time I heard him say "stinky" as "inky." He would say that over and over to Peter (and the next day he even said it to me). That night he was mad at his mom for something and hissed at her. We were talking about the scars on my knee, and Baby came up and pointed to my "owie"--but I think he was actually pointing to a dry spot that's always there and not the scar from my fall. He kept asking for a haircut, since everyone else was getting haircuts.

Then in August of last year, I was able to go out and visit them. He still said "You inky" all the time. Once he said it during the sacrament at church. We all had to stifle our laughter and be glad that no one else could understand what he was saying.

It took him some time to say my name that trip. Ya-ping told me one day that she heard him saying my name in his sleep. Then a day or so later, he was saying "Uncle Mark" to Peter. Peter asked him why he was saying that to him and not to me. (I don't think he was calling Peter by my name; he was just saying it for some reason.)

When Franklin would have temper tantrums, he would say "Ge-ge not nice!" (Ge-ge is his word for Franklin--it means "older brother." It's pronounced like "guh guh.")

He also liked to pretend to be a dog and bark. Sometimes when he would play dog, I would meow. So then he took up meowing. It was adorable, but unfortunately I don't have any footage of it.

You may also remember my video of him and Franklin playing slides. He liked to do that, and he would say "slide" as "ide." Once he wanted me to slide down him, so he put himself in slide position and said "my ide." (I pretended to slide down him, but I actually didn't have any contact with him at all. Fortunately, that satisfied him.)

We went out again for Christmas 2012. He no longer said "You inky," but he did start counting. On Christmas Eve, I was able to talk to him on the phone before we got there. He started counting and telling me the alphabet. After we got there, we were driving in the car, and he asked for my attention so he could count. He said "seven" more like "sibben," and I think he also said "eleven" like "sibben." If I remember correctly, he would confuse seven and eleven, so once he got to eleven, he would start over again at eight.

The day after Christmas, we were preparing to go pick up my grandparents from the airport. I couldn't decide whether I was going with. But then Baby was talking to me, and I couldn't understand what he was saying. My mom told me he was saying, "Will you sit by me?" So I did go with them after all.

He also learned to say "What about me?" After Preston's confirmation after his baptism, Franklin tried to get in the confirmation chair. We told Franklin he would have to wait a few years. Baby said, "What about me?" There were other times he said this expression, as well.

One day Franklin was having a fit and saying, "I want to play the meat boy game!" So Baby matter-of-factly told us, "Ge-ge want to play the meat boy game"--but with fewer consonants.

If you asked him what his name was, he would say, "Ee-uh." "Is your name Nathaniel?" "No, Ee-uh." "Is your name Baby?" "No, Ee-uh." 

In January, I was able to talk to him on the phone. He was initially talking to my mom, and he was talking and talking. She needed to go do other things, so (at my request) she asked him if he wanted to talk to me. He said "yesh" and talked to me. He is hard to understand in person, but he's even harder to understand on the phone. I think the only thing I understood in fifteen or so minutes of talking was "Ah-bay go up" ("Airplane goes up"). For a while, I think he mentioned his "ah-bay" every time he was on the phone; just two or three months ago I heard a message he left on our answering machine that said, "I wanna show you my ah-bay," followed by a sad "they're not home."

As I mentioned earlier, Baby leaves off a lot of consonants, especially at the beginning of words. Even after going to speech classes, he still leaves them off. We were able to visit just this past month, and he still leaves them off. He kept asking for Gatorade and called it "Atorade." Except that he might not have said the t and the d (or the r).

It wasn't until this most recent visit that I realized the way Baby distinguishes his brothers. Franklin is "Ge-ge" and Preston is "Brother," even though he could call either of them by either name. He does know their real names (I asked him), but he doesn't say them most of the time.

On our visit to Kings Canyon National Park, I discovered several interesting things Baby says. We were telling him how he needed to be careful. If we would tell him he was going to fall down, he would say, "I won't!" Once I said to him "Be careful," and he said "I woe!" I thought he was saying "I won't" because he was expecting me to tell him not to fall down. However, I later figured out that "I woe" is his way of saying "I will"--he doesn't have the "ill" sound down. That makes it very confusing. If you say "I won't" naturally, you may notice that you don't really say the n and the t. You nasalize the vowel, and the t is more of a glottal stop. When you factor that in with the fact that Baby has a hard time with consonants anyway, it means that "I won't" and "I will" sound almost exactly the same when he says them.

Sometimes if he was climbing on something and we wanted to help him, he would say, "I know how to get down." He said that often; I would say it was his catch phrase for this visit. Once he said a variation on this--he picked up a piece of granite and said, "I know how to hold it!"

He says "shoes" as "hoo." He still says "stinky" as "inky," but he doesn't go around saying "You inky" all the time.

On the Fourth of July we went to go see some fireworks. We put him in his carseat in the back of the Suburban. He kept saying something, but we couldn't understand it. Then he started crying, which meant we really couldn't understand what he was saying. David eventually figured out he was upset that no one was sitting in the back by him.

When Ya-ping is reproving the boys, she will say their whole names, as in "Preston Melville." Once she said, "Baby Melville." Baby said, "I not Moevoe!" That was one of the things that helped me realize that he says "will" as "woe," since he say the "ville" in Melville as "voe."

That led me to have fun conversations with him. He understands more about his names now than he did in December. He might even say the first consonant in Qi-en now.
"Is your name Nathaniel?" (Nods)
"Is your name Qi-en?" (Nods)
"Is your name Baby?" (Nods)
"Is your name Melville?" (Shakes his head)

At our hotel near Disneyland, we went to the swimming pool. He was shivering the whole time, but when we asked if he wanted to get out, he didn't want to. Sometimes he was shivering so much that he was even harder to understand than usual. I asked him what the names of his family members were, and he was able to tell me all of them--"Wanklin," "Dabid," "A-bing." I can't remember how he said "Preston."

After the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland, he said, "I want to do that again!"--even though I think he was a little scared of it, but evidently less scared than Franklin. (He was, however, more scared of Pirates of the Caribbean.)

As with all the other kids, I know I will remember more things that he says after I post this.