Why we use words to communicate

Do I look like I want to say something?

My younger son, Theo, is 2.5 years old. At this age the "developmental milestones" say he should have a vocabulary of 100 words or thereabouts and he should also be using two-word sentences. A while back he appeared to be starting to develop vocabulary--imitating lots of words, and using them. But then he suddenly stopped, and he's remained with about ten active words that he only uses one at a time. He does speak a lot, but it's his own gibberish-language.

I really hate those milestones that label your kid as being not normal if they're not matching up to the average kid. At the same time, I can't help but worry, at the same time as I try not to worry because I don't want my concern to transmit to him in some way that I think that anything is wrong with him. I saw a friend of mine a couple weeks ago whose daughter was born a week before Theo, and she's way ahead of her milestones--speaking in clear and complete sentences, with a vocabulary probably in the high hundreds, and already able to read.

But then yesterday, Theo got his legs caught in a chair and he started crying and saying, "Help! Help!" I don't recall him ever even hearing the word "help" before. So it made me think: maybe he doesn't speak because he doesn't need to. This little boy has his needs met. We're together most of the time, we've coslept 98% of his life, and maybe he doesn't see any reason to speak, to identify objects with a name just because other people are doing it.

I'm thinking about the reasons why we speak at all, why we use words. It's different from the production of mere sound, as Theo is doing, which is an authentic expression of him just as much as movement or tears or smiles. The basic reason for using words is to communicate in order to get a need met, even though it's sort of a middleman like money is--putting one's need into a common representational image in order to have someone else understand what you want.

Some people use speech as a means to transmit or refine energy--to shape it into a thought-form and push it out into the noosphere, that dream-cloud of knowledge and ideas that permeates the world and is accessible to our subconscious. Some people use talking to "blow off steam"--needing a stream of words to release emotion. Some people have logorrhea and no longer distinguish between thinking out loud and talking. Perhaps the way we use speech is one thing children will imitate...and maybe he sees that I really use it only to communicate to get a need met, as honestly I don't really like talking that much. I prefer writing.

(I don't dislike talking and I do plenty of it on a daily basis. I'm just saying a lot of it is mechanical and not truly expressive of me as writing is--the "small talk." When I have the rarer deep connection with someone, that thought-form shaping and transmission becomes a conscious mutual act of creation and can be truly pleasurable.)

Anyhow. A friend of mine who does craniosacral and energy work is going to come over and do a session on Theo, just because I don't want to do nothing, but I won't do anything with people who might say he has a problem because, looking at how happy and healthy he is, he obviously doesn't. Stay tuned for updates on the mystery of Theo's disappearing vocabulary.