Hyatt's alternative speech patterns

If you haven't heard Hyatt speak yet, you've missed out. He's done a couple of funny things in his path to linguistic excellence.

First, Hyatt learned how to talk at a normal age, but he said such cute things that we'd tell people about them or ask him to repeat something, and being a sensitive guy, the embarrassment of all that attention caused him to stop speaking. His cousin, who's almost 4 months younger, was speaking like crazy, and Hyatt was almost silent. He'd say "Momma" for anything he wanted or needed, but that was about it. Just about when I was starting to worry about him, he finally, at 21 months old, decided it was time to break his vow of silence, and he began speaking in sentences. Every day he would blow us away by speaking more and more, with clarity and meaning and thought. He caught up to his cousin within days and was speaking like any other 2-year-old.

Then came the echo. A few months ago, he started speaking with an echo. It was so funny that we didn't want to correct him, or point it out to him in fear of him getting embarrassed and discontinuing it. What he'd do is repeat the last letter of a sentence, such as "I want to eat-t." and "Make it stop-p." or "I want my hat-t." It was really funny! I wish I had it on video, but he didn't do every time he spoke, and he spoke so quietly, I wasn't sure I'd be able to capture it. Plus, my video camera was lost in our mess and we hadn't purchased our new one yet. He doesn't do it anymore, so I've lost my window of video opportunity.

Now, Hyatt often speaks with a new twist. He tries to get his entire sentence out in one breath, so he runs out of air while talking and his words sound really "strained." If you want to know how it sounds, just do this. Exhale all of your air out...all of it! I mean until you feel like if you don't inhale NOW you just might pass out or die. Now, when all of your air is completely expelled, say a sentence, such as "Are you coming to my house, Dallas?" How did it sound? Strained? That's how Hyatt sounds, although he's not exhaling all of his air out, I don't think. I don't know what he's doing, but it's pretty darn funny. He doesn't do it all the time, so not everyone gets a chance to hear it, but he does it often enough that a lot of people have witnessed it. I have yet to catch it on video.