Children's firsts are frequently a bittersweet time for parents. Wobbly steps are not just a sign that your baby is growing up, they also make it possible for him to move AWAY from you, sometimes rather quickly. When you're in a mall. Using the bathroom.

I was always under the impression that except for the occasional regression when their little world was shattered, say by a death in the family, moving to unfamiliar surroundings or the addition of a brand new sibling, once children check off items from their developmental To Do lists, they stay done.

Then I had a teenager.

Suddenly and without warning, the very same child I taught how to speak lost the ability of verbal communication.

A simple question like, "Hey, who's going to be at the bonfire tonight?" is answered with "Mmprhfmr."

If "Can you please pass the salt?" even gets a response, it's equally garbled.

Kids use all kinds of acronyms when texting and IM'ing each other (POS means "Parent Over Shoulder" and not the meaning older generations associate with that particular grouping of letters, by the way.) so one possibility is that his keyboarding shortcuts have spilled over to the verbalizing portion of his brain. Maybe we're evolving away from complete words and going back to the early stages of language acquisition.

There's also the ironic chance that the braces on his teeth (formerly known as the Hawaiian vacation and new car fund) are to blame.

So when you get a little misty thinking that the nonsensical, non-stop indecipherable chatter from the back seat will some day end, don't fret. You've got years of not being able to understand what your kid is saying ahead of you!