Oh, Jamie

Jamie's grasp of language is a little uneven.  He understands everything you say to him but he doesn't have a ton of words yet.  He has a lot of syllables but very few of them come out in a way that make sense in English.  Perhaps he's speaking Linear A.  This doesn't really worry me a whole lot.  He'll get there when he gets there and I'm sure that when he does I'll wish he never, ever started talking.

But for now, we make do with a lot of games of 20 questions.  He has some approximation of "yes" and "no" and this means that we can generally figure out what it is he wants - even if it's with a lot of frustration thrown into the mix.

Recently, however, he's mastered the facepalm.  He uses this to denote his utter disgust at our inability to read his mind.  It goes a little something like this:

Jamie enters the kitchen and walks to the pantry cupboard.  He points up and makes cave man like grunting noises.  He wants something.  Considering the fact that two-thirds of the pantry is above his head, he could be referring to any one of a large number of items.

I pick him up in the hopes he will point more definitively to the item he is after.

I get a slightly more specific area of the pantry to look in and the guessing game begins.

Me:  Do you want the goldfish crackers?
Jamie: [facepalm]
Me: Do you want bunny grahams?
Jamie: [facepalm]
Me:  Do you want some Cracklin' Oat Bran?
Jamie: [facepalm]
Me:  Do you want oyster crackers?
Jamie: [facepalm]
Me:  Do you want pretzel crackers?
Jamie:  [excited panting]

I grab the box off the shelf, put him on the floor, and tell him to get a bowl.  He runs to the proper cupboard, chooses a bowl, and I pour him some snack crackers.  He takes them and runs away into the family room - sometimes leaving me with his version of "thank you" but more often with nothing at all.

Some communication is worlds better than no communication so I deal with it.  I think I only have to start worrying if he employs the headdesk.