The Triumph of Sir Talksalot

Originally posted 2/13/09


Ian talks a lot.
Actually, to say that he talks a lot is a massive understatement. He opens his mouth before he opens his eyes in the morning when I wake him up, and he doesn’t stop until he’s in bed and I shut the door on him somewhere in mid-sentence.
He is the personification of twitter, constantly and needlessly updating me about his every move, thought and whereabouts, and incessantly questioning me about the sun, the sky, and everything you can possibly imagine that exists underneath the two.

He talks and talks and talks.
When I think about how much he talks, I can’t help but think back to the time when he was a baby and then a wee toddler. When he first started bouncing around on legs that haven’t stopped kicking since he was biding his time in utero, drooling like a broken faucet, laughing constantly, and trying his hardest to communicate verbally. His mom and I would lose our minds with joy when his gibberish sounded even remotely similar to anything we tried to teach him to say. Like all parents we were coaching and encouraging him to speak the instant his eyes revealed that he was aware, watching and listening to everything we said and did.
Had we known the ramifications of him learning to talk, we probably would have communicated through written messages, or grunts and gestures, so that language would have remained foreign to him as long as possible.
Now that I think about it, this probably would have saved our marriage too.

My mother tells me I deserve every second of his boggling proclivity to prattle. Apparently I was just as verbose. I don’t think that is possible, but I have to take her word for it and I have apologized to both of my parents many times.

These days I’m a man of brooding silence, so Ian’s overactive jaw can get to me. Especially when I’m trying to do homework. I hope he hangs on to it though. I lost it somewhere along the way, and I’m pretty sure it has left me with a social deficit.
I’m Ian’s father, but it is just as much a learning experience for me as it is for him. As much as I try to show and teach Ian, maybe he will show me how to talk to anyone and everyone about anything and everything and I can eventually make some more friends. But, right now I’m too busy with school, so maybe he could just be quiet for one second.

With that said, I’m glad my thoughts are being documented. That way when Ian is a teenager and doesn’t want anything to do with me, someone can rub my face in it.