Not only that, but he understands sarcasm better than a lot of people I know.

I consider myself to have sufficient articulation abilities which qualify me to aptly vocabularize my own toddler. See? I can even make up words.

But Drew has followed in Cameron's footsteps and developed his own language. He calls milk "mis", he calls his favorite TV show "Bah-ta-ah-tah". (That means Backyardigans. Granted, that's a tough one.) For months he called both Ethan and Cameron "E-tah" because "Cameron" was too hard to say. Then he switched to calling Cameron "Dew", which is the same way he pronounces his own name, and that made it hard to distinguish if he was talking about his brother or himself. We have since succeeded in teaching Drew to call Cameron "Cami", which, admittedly, is a bit girly, but it beats confusion.

Then about three months ago, I noticed that while Drew was watching his "Bah-ta-ah-tah", he would copy some of the words the characters said with amazing clarity. I watched him mimic the words, repeat them, and tuck them away into his brain for future use. Why he couldn't do that with the words I tried to teach him, I'll never know. Let's just chalk it up to kids not listening to their parents, shall we?

So I began to let him watch more television than Doctor Spock would approve of, but the results in Drew's speech were remarkable. He now says all kinds of normal things that most people can understand. "Where did he go?", "Are we going to Nana's house?", "I don't like that food,"... He even knows how to say "Dr. Pepper" and "Wal-Mart" - words that he did not learn from TV. On a good day he can expertly spout off a "What the hell?", and if that doesn't put me in the running for World's Best Mother, I don't know what will.

So I continue to work on correcting my own vocabulary and letting Drew watch insane amounts of cartoons so that we can eventually communicate without limits.

Today I was baking cookies in the kitchen and feeding some to the kiddos when Drew came in and asked, "Did Mom drop her cookie on the floor?", and then answered himself, "Noooo.... Did Bry-Bry drop his cookie on the floor?...Noooo.... Did Baby drop his cookie on the floor? YES!" And now I can't decide if he's had an overdose of Dora or Diego.

But let's not worry about Drew becoming a couch potato, because he dances like a cracked out ballerina when he watches The Fresh Beat Band. He's burning more calories than he's taking in, he can interact with kids and adults without twitching, and the boy still loves to play outside and beat the life out of his older brothers. So don't feel bad that I sit him in front of the TV with a Diet Coke for his daily 19 hours of language therapy. He'll turn out fine, I'm sure.