29-03 2022.

The little girl next door is around two, now. In the last 4-5 months (I think) she's been saying more, and, mostly, she calls her mummy. Not because mummy is miles away, but just to say her name. I hear "mummaaa" and "mummyyy" countless times per day from the other side of the wall we share. I could imagine some finding it repetitive but I've realised it's just really sweet. She wants to know where mummy is when (imaginably) she's stepped into another room. "Mummyy, where aree youuu?" she calls, in this innocently curious tone as if they were playing hide and seek. Instead of playfully in a game, though, it's actually just spoken from her heart towards mummy. How cute is it that a person calls on your name multiple times a day and wants you nearby, even when you've not really gone? Just recently her mother was calling her or asking her to do something (as far as I picked up... you don't really hear her parents' voices as often compared to hers) and her response is "yes mummmyy!!", "okay mummmy!!" Sometimes I get the sense that her enthusiasm must be somewhat courageous.

All of this could be very expected to someone who has witnessed it but being the youngest of four, growing up last, I haven't all that much - closeby at least. That, and perhaps generally, such daily company as they have sounds sweet to the ears, as I'm going about my own things being given a glimpse of these short moments. Her dad calls her "pickle" and "angel". It's so awesome how intelligent children are, and how He made us to be - there are different meanings expressed within "dadda" when she says it at different times, depending on her tone of voice in the syllables and how she elongates higher and lower pitches in various lengths... she can clearly express surprise, urgency, a calm wonder, affection, excitement, a need... all in one word. And the word is a name. I realise that we do this fundamentally in speech, to a extent, as adults too, which is still impressive with all that we can express with our voices, but children often use varying tones more candidly. Partly due to not having a wider vocabulary until a later age, so that they express more in fewer words via another medium, and partly because they are explorative and open. Also just generally because they grow and mature in articulation over a number of years; something about their very honest utterances makes this time what is is, though. Their minds are young, learning communication. They have less of a perceived idea of what's conventionally "right" or "wrong" when it comes to expression; their emotions are on display frequently, without hesitation - whereas in growing up we tend to conceal them more, we hide more. Of course, a degree of filtration and self-control is a sign of maturity, and can be appropriate in different contexts and settings... yet in adult life there also lies, many times, the tragedy of suppressing and confining what the heart is living.

I wonder if in another two years I'm going to hear "dadddy" through the wall from her littler brother. Or maybe more "mummy"s -- probably both. Right now he communicates audibly with his baby cries... but time goes by fast. Those early years are precious.