Give us cookie now

Many, many years ago, I was an infant. I developed fairly normally, I suppose; I ate, I drank, walked around, banged on high chair table when I was watching hockey (I grew up in the north. Sue me).

One thing I didn't do was talk. Eight months, a year, sixteen months went by and not a word. My parents began to wonder if I was...ahem...limited.

Then, one day in about my 18th month, my mother was doing the laundry. She didn't notice, but I had developed a rather smooth contraption of pushing the chair with my booster seat in it over to the counter, climbed up on it and got on the counter top.

I sat down and looked at her. And spoke.

"Gimme cookie now," I said.

And there it was. Not a word like "mama" or "dada"--a complete sentence. A demand, actually. It has become family legend.

Flash forward three decades. My nephew, who many people say is a mirror image of myself, is about 18 months old. He's very active, loud, runs around and generally raises hell. But he hasn't been talking much; he says "dada" and that's about it.

Then, the other day, my sister was cooking dinner. She was by the stove, which is by the cookie jar. My nephew walked over and pulled on my sister's pant leg. She looked down at him. He looked up at her.

"Gimme cookie," he said.

My sister puked.

I love that kid.