My beautiful daughter,
the one who just up and figured out how to say the letter R,
who speaks in beautiful sentences with correct pronouns most of the time,
who delights us with lengthy conversations and multi-verse songs,
who can joke and play around with us
(which my father always said was a sign of true comfort with a language),
has started stammering.

It started about a week ago.
“Wh- wh- wh- wh- wh- what’s this?”
“You- you- you- you can play with me?”
etc.

Her verbal motor cranks and cranks until it finally turns over, and then there’s no slowing her down, but…
it’s been getting progressively worse over the past few days.

I’ve read up on it. I’ve talked to a couple of friends about it. I’ve talked to the director of the church preschool about it, and of course, to R. Everyone agrees, it’s nothing to worry about. It’s normal, especially with verbal kids whose brains get ahead of their mouths. The preschool director even gave me a book (ominously titled “Your Three-Year-Old: Friend or Enemy?”) which says, in part,

It is a customary, usually quite normal stage that children go through. In what we call a high-language child, stuttering may even come in at two and a half [bingo! on the money]… most speech specialists advise strongly not only that parents not worry about preschool stuttering, but that they not do anything about it.

The advice is unanimous: fear not. Even if it turns into something, which it probably won’t, fear not. And I already knew that intuitively. All is well.

Still, every time she does it I want to burst into tears. (Gee, pregnant much?)

I don’t feel impatient with her. Lord knows I don’t feel disappointed with her. Even if this were to become a long-term issue, I still wouldn’t.

As she pumps the gas and tries to get her mouth revved up, she is completely unbothered by the whole thing, but a sick truth careens into me:

Kids will make fun of her.

If it’s not this, it’ll be something else. Somewhere, some time, even if just for a moment—a malicious season of junior high, say, when girls can be unspeakably brutal… She will acquire a label. Who knows what it will be.
“Geek.”
“Dork.”
“Jock.” (although that seems unlikely)
“Bitch.” (I think I could teach her to embrace that)
“Four-eyes.”
“Know-it-all.”
“Teacher’s pet.”
“Dyke.”
“Goody two-shoes.”
“Freak.”

All synonyms for “Different.”

The label will be specific, and it will hit head-on, because it might well be rooted in something true, and truth frequently knocks the wind out of us. But it will be fueled by a fierce sort of cruelty as well, which means there will be some wreckage.

And there’s nothing I can do about it, except patiently buckle her in, and pray for the best.