I don’t think that anyone who writes and freelances for a living ever really takes a vacation. My plan has been to take the last two weeks of the year “off” to spend time with family and friends. Holidays are hardly the way to be “off” and take the kind of restful vacation we need, but on the whole it’s been good for renewing myself and my creativity. At least for this holiday season, taking time off has mostly involved not being at my computer much at all, which has been a refreshing change.

My son tried out a few new words this week, particularly with all the attention – and, therefore, words – he gets from everyone. With all of the speech barriers he has to overcome, every new word he says is a gift greater than any you could wrap and put under our tree.

My days are filled with words, and for the most part they come pretty easily for me. For my son, they don’t. He works extremely hard for each new word and earns every one of them. When a word clicks in his head and he gets it out, his face lights up with pure joy. Not surprisingly, so does mine.

The holidays are meant for wonder. Perhaps as adults we’ve lost much of that innate capacity for wonder that children have. Being with him when he discovers a new word is one of the multitude of ways he’s helped me find that sense again. He’s made me realize that I take language for granted. This week, he’s taught me to appreciate how wonderful ‘banana’ (uh-NAH-nuh!) and ‘knee’ are.

What did I do over my Christmas vacation? I learned that sounding every syllable of every word very carefully and slowly, over and over again, is to unearth the beauty of language all over again. Even more than that, I realized that watching my son discover it for the very first time is to stand on holy ground.