by Pamela Grundy

Created on: May 23, 2008   Last Updated: May 28, 2008

When my oldest daughter was a toddler, she never talked baby talk. She spoke in complete sentences from day one, possibly because I was a single mom during that time, she was the first grandchild, and so she was always surrounded by adults who adored her and spoke to her as though she were one of them. Often I'd be in supermarket and we'd be chatting away as I shopped, and a stranger would round the corner with his or her cart and be astonished to see the words they were hearing coming out of a tiny person in diapers.

People often said strange things to me that addressed this unusual quality in her. For example, when I finally got the two of us into our own apartment after living with my parents for over a year, my upstairs neighbor said to me (by way of a compliment), "It's amazing to me how you talk to that little girl as if she were a real person!"

Gee, thanks... I think.

Weirdly, this was not a new sort of comment. When my daughter was a newborn and I was still married to her father and living on the east coast, I purchased one of the first front-pack baby carriers. You know the kind: it looks like a small backpack except the baby goes in front, facing the mom's chest. This worked out great for me, especially at the supermarket, because my daughter was born premature, small, and fussy, and carrying her this way kept her sleeping soundly. But I can't even count the number of times that, while standing in line at the checkout I got the twin questions,

"Is that baby REAL?!?" or worse, "Is that baby ALIVE?!?"

Um, no, no, seriously, I like to carry a toy baby around on my chest because I get better parking spaces that way and people let me move to the front of the line.

The instance I will never forget though happened one day in the grocery store when I was still living with my folks after my divorce and my daughter was just barely two years old. She looked younger because she was small, and as I mentioned, she also spoke in odd little complete sentences, sounding much more like a tiny midget adult or alien species than a toddler.

The line for the checkout was long that day, and, getting fidgety, my daughter tugged on the shirt of the young man waiting in front of us. He turned and gave me and then my daughter a doting smile meant to convey, yes, yes how cute, a small human, very sweet: at which point my daughter looked right up at him and said plain as day and with dead seriousness,

"My mommy has hair on her bottom."

I never saw a man turn so red so fast.

So if you are considering parenthood, be forewarned. This is what you are asking for, and so much more. It's all worth it too. Every bit.

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