Onomatopoeia

Okay, so maybe I was looking for an excuse to blog about my favorite word in the English language. Except etymologically speaking, there's nothing 'English' about onomatopoeia. According to the American Heritage Dictionary (there's more irony), the word comes from the Greek 'onomatopoiia'.

The whole point of onomatopoeia (or onomatopoiia if you like) - and yes, I am trying to see how many times I can use onomatopoeia in this post - is that a particular word means exactly as it sounds, like whack, buzz and boing. Poop is not onomatopoeia - sorry, nice try - but if it was, it would be double bonus points for being a palindrome as well. And that, my friends, is one of the reasons why onomatopoeia is my favorite word; the other reason is that it's just plain fun to say.

This brings us, finally, for the purpose of this entry: sounds.

Every family has them, especially if that family, like ours, includes young children. Some sounds I imagine are universal - giggles, pitter patter of little footsteps - and some of which are unique. The cool thing about all of it is that the sounds aren't static, but evolve as the family grows and matures. Of late, Rory and Myer are beginning to gel as siblings, as observed through the synchronicity of their sounds (yes, I was also looking for an excuse to blog about the Matt School of Rock, and the album that started it all for him).

I have it on very good authority (i.e., Wikipedia) that in order to be synchronous, the events must be related to one another temporally, and the chance that they would occur together by random chance must be very small. That is exactly the conspiracy I am about to describe, and that every parent of young children well knows.

Exhibit A: When one is done eating, and only when one is finished eating, does the other child tell you he's hungry no matter how many times you offer food or ask (because you know he is), "Are you hungry?" Or worse, the child breaks down into what can only be described as 'ugly mood syndrome'. This is usually accompanied by the quickness to tears, high-pitched wail or incessant "Mommy, I'm hungry" in the case of Rory, or the "uh uh uh uh" / "glom glom" of Myer rooting for milk / sticking whole fist into mouth.

Exhibit B: Closed spaces = primal urge to cry. Loudly. There is an inverse relationship between the size of the closed space and the decibels little voices are able to reach. This is especially true when in the car. When Myer has stopped wailing "wah wah wah wah wah wah", and only then, will Rory decide it's his turn to "eeeAAAHHHH!" or "goo GOO, Myer!"

Of course, this sibling synchronicity also includes the happy sounds.

Exhibit C: Places with great acoustics. Have you ever witnessed children's remarkable extra-sensory perception to detect the optimal acoustics of any space, usually public places. Shopping malls, museums, subway pedestrian tunnels, outdoor courtyards, and movie theaters - though we haven't yet taken Rory to see his first movie yet, I know the latter to be one of these places (call it mother's intution). Usually, the echoes aren't words, but some variation on the extremely high-pitched "Eh! Eh!" Like bats, Rory and Myer (and every other young child) delights in the sound of his squeals echoing off the walls. Rory's Tarzanesque call (similar to Carol Burnet's, whose birthday is also this week). Myer is still figuring his out, and in the meantime tries out a dizzying array of squeals of all pitch, frequency and duration.

We all love to laugh - the really hearty and belly-aching kind of gufaws. Especially when Myer gets going with his delightful little chuckles. Rory and I have a kind of porpoise-like rapid-fire "heh heh ha ha ha" while Matt's is more booming chortle. And it's all infectious (because again, it's a conspiracy). When Myer laughs, Rory laughs; when Rory laughs, Myer laughs.

Of course, this post would hardly be complete without some mention of the potty humor. Any word used to describe a fart (toot, thbit, pfft, etc.) is, by definition, onomatopoeia. All the sounds of bodily functions provide a never-ending wonderment for both children and parents alike in our household. As I've written before, nothing makes Matt prouder than the expulsion of gas from either orifice of Rory or Myer.

Finally, there is also the absence of all sound - an occurrence that is either dreaded (a sure bet that 'something is up') or fortuitous, those all-too-rare moments of parental zen at the end of a long day. Rory completely engrossed in pretend play, usually with his cars. Myer and 'total absence of sound' is more or less an oxymoron at this stage in his development, because if he's not vocalizing he's banging or clanking some toy of his. Of course, silence can also be an indication that one or both are asleep. And that, my friends, is my moment of parental zen, which thankfully happens like clockwork (tick tock) every evening at about 9 pm.