Living with a Foreign Exchange Student

Who is this foreign exchange student, you might ask? His name is Seth. In recent weeks, Seth has gone through a language explosion. He is constantly talking. He likes to identify things and people. He repeats words he hears or things he wants. It is all really fun and exciting. The problem happens when we don't know what he is saying. Sometimes he has just made up his own word for something, but has neglected to tell us. Other times he is pronouncing something in a way we cannot identify it. So the game becomes, trying to figure out what he is saying.

The other day, Seth turns to me and says "gablablapa." Or something like that. I, not know quite what that means, say, "garbage?" Seth looks directly at me and very slowly says, "No, gablablapa." He said it so slowly and with such care, it almost seemed he was thinking "No, stupid, I didn't say garbage I said gablablapa. How can you not know what that means!" Hence, I feel like we are living with a foreign exchange student and we are constantly working on creating a common language.