Something to Talk About

Leah and Riley have been babbling for months now, but the babbling has recently gotten a heckuva lot more intense. Here's a snippet of what our household has sounded like over the past few days:

Leah: Doy-doy-doy-doy-doy-doy-doy-doy-doy-doy-doy-doy!
Me: Really? That's interesting, Leah.
Riley: Gggggggggggpthaaaaaaaaaagggggg! [Spit flying everywhere]
Me: [wiping spit from face] Really? That's interesting, Riley.
Leah and Riley: aaaa--AAAAAAA-aaaa!
Me: You don't say!

I have definitely got to work on my baby conversational skills. I think some mothers are naturally gifted and can effortlessly carry on long conversations/monologues with their babies even though the babies (a) cannot speak, and (b) cannot understand speech. Which would normally be considered major obstacles to good conversation. But mothers always seem to be undeterred by this. When I see mothers pushing their babies in their strollers, they're always leisurely talking to their babies -- they're asking them how their day is going, they're updating them on where they're going and how the rest of the day is going to go, they're regaling them with fascinating tales about days of yore. When I see fathers pushing their babies in their strollers, they're usually just trying to go where they need to go as fast as they can, before the babies start crying.

When I do have a "conversation" with the girls, it generally falls into one of three categories:

• Category 1: Girls babble and daddy pretends that they're saying something (see "doy-doy" example).
• Category 2: Daddy narrates everything he's doing. For some reason, I usually do this in song. Some of daddy's greatest hits include "Daddy Put Leah's Onesie on Backwards" and "Daddy's Trying to Wash Riley's Legs (But Riley Won't Stop Splashing Him)". I don't know why it has to be in song -- maybe it's so that the music disguises the boringness of what I'm actually saying.
• Category 3: Daddy tells the girls how cute they are. As in "Who's the cutie? RILEY'S the cutie!"

Of course, the thing about having twins is that as soon as you tell one of them how cute they are, you instantly feel guilty unless you immediately follow up by telling the other one that, of course, they are equally as cute. You end up catching yourself and saying things like "Who's the sweetest girl in the world? Leah is! Um, except for Riley! Who is exactly as sweet as Leah! They score exactly the same on the sweetness scale! Uh, yeah!"

Oh well. So maybe I'm not a great baby conversationalist. I guess it's not like I'm a great adult conversationalist either. Actually, the next time I have an awkward conversation pause, I'm going to follow the wise words of my daughter Leah, and just say "doy-doy-doy-doy".