My older children are convinced their little brother is a highly verbal genius. Every time he makes a noise, I hear voices shouting, "Mom! Did you hear that? He said..."

Every time I am not in the room, my one year apparently has taken to having long conversations with his brother. Probably about the difficulties of finding good sisters these days or the unlikelihood that anyone other than Shakespeare really penned the Bard's plays or perhaps how far they could shoot something of their sisters' across the room. Brothers, of course, have so many topics of conversation.

It's true that the one year old is quite the mimic. Say anything around him and he'll get a big grin and try to repeat it. There are only a few things I'm willing to count as words yet, "Noooooo" and "Dee" (for "three" which my husband says as he rockets the baby around the room and which the child will run up and shout gleefully if he finds you lying in a position that reminds him at all of the rocketship game). He sometimes correctly says "Mama" and "Dada" but even those don't seem to be clearly specific, as far as I'm concerned.

Nevertheless, his siblings translate volumes of his sayings and let me know what he's thinking. My seven year old sagely confided in me the other day, "What they said on that public television parent tip is true. You should talk to your babies a lot."

"Only if you actually want them to learn to speak," I said.