I was burning up with fever a few nights ago and Billy put his face close to mine. “Dalmation ... BALmation!!” he screamed with laughter at the hilarity of his joke about the 101 Dalmations and nearly fell off my bed. Then, in case I wasn't aware of his intent (and to be honest, it's hard to tell sometimes), he pressed his nose close to mine and grinned widely as he informed me, “I making kidding ... IN YOUR FACE!”

Knock Knock! Who's there? And at that point, he usually wanders off ...

At some point over the last couple of weeks, Borat moved into my house.

It's glorious. For the first time, Billy is making spontaneous comments about the world around him. It's sometimes in the broken, kookily-constructed English of an enthusiastic new immigrant from ... I don't know, maybe another planet ... but it is English. And it's not scripts he learned from books or movies.

Usually, it's narration of the world around him, particularly on the way to or from school: “That girl is driving a scooter.” “We have 101 trees!” Or “That dog is having a poo-poo.” Yes, keep walking.

On a few rare occasions, we've gotten a glimpse into something we'd never have known if he hadn't been able to tell us. “I'm thinking about ... Ms. Thorp.” Mrs. Thorp was his pre-K teacher last year. We haven't seen her since June, but he loved her. Knowing he was thinking about her inspired me to pull out pictures from last year and look at them together, remembering his friends and teachers and aides.

And occasionally, we're totally confused. Like the morning he came up to me and said, “I'm sorry, Mama.”

“What's wrong, baby?” I asked him.

“I'm scared of kangaroos,” he told me and jumped up into my lap for a big hug.

We just sort of sat there like that for a minute, as I tried to come up with a response -- “Fear of kangaroos” is not covered in What to Expect in the Toddler Years, but then again, neither is most of our life. And I finally just explained to him that we luckily live in Florida where there are no kangaroos, but if one starts bothering him, to be sure and let me know.

He could be calling the neighbor's dog a “kangaroo.” Or it could be some uniquely Billy way of saying he needs the bathroom. Or he could actually mean he actually hates kangaroos. (When you think about it, with the pockets and the jumping – on some level, it just ain't right.) Without a trip to Planet Autism, we may never understand it.

Anyway, the inexplicable kangaroo phobia aside, it's been an amazing couple of weeks, watching his words emerge. He's had words, of course, for a couple of years now, but mostly of the scripted variety. Or commands along the lines of, “Juice!” or “Be happy!”

Now he can talk about his favorites: “I love this story,” about 101 Dalmations.

And things he hates: “I don't need bananas!” Anything he doesn't like is something he doesn't need.

But the greatest breakthrough of the last six months came a few nights ago. He was sitting on the toilet, where we hang out a lot these days, as we've also been making big strides in the potty training arena.

He was reading his “magazine,” what he calls the Toys R Us catalog that came in the mail. He likes to look at toy catalogs, not because he wants to acquire the goods, but because he likes to look at pictures of other kids playing with toys. He's not interested in pictures of merchandise. But show him a picture of a kid actually playing with Legos, and he'll study it for 15 minutes.

As we waited for the magic to happen, he carefully looked over each page of his catalog, and I perused the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog to see what useless products like Circulation Improving Leg Wraps and a genuine 7-foot Robby the Robot from Lost in Space are going for these days ($149.95 and $50,000, respectively). So that's the scene.

Billy: That boy is making some golf.

Me: (without looking up) That boy is playing golf.

Billy: That girl is having a haircut.

Me: Yeah! Good job. (Then I actually look at the page.) Wait. She's asleep. What makes you think she's having a hair cut?

But Billy is already studying another picture. He's concentrating really hard. I can see the wheels turning and know he wants to say something. Finally, he points at the picture and looks at me.

Billy: Mama! What ... are ... they ... doing?

I drop my catalog to the floor. Instantly, tears are streaming down my face. It's incredible how fast that happened and I'm laughing and hugging him and explaining that the kids are jumping on a blow-up trampoline.

He has no idea what has happened and kind of wriggles out of my grasp so he can turn the page.

But I'm frozen and still wiping tears and I want to go tell Dave but I'm afraid Billy might want to ask another question and --

He asked a question. A WHAT question. A question that showed curiosity. A question whose purpose was just to get more information.

Prior to that day, the only questions we'd ever heard him ask – outside of repeating scripts – were “Where?” questions: “Where is Mama?” “Where are the crayons?” And even those are rare.

I'll be here all week ...

We sat there for another half-hour, looking at the toy catalog together, talking about the pictures. He asked me, “What are they doing?” a couple more times, like an old pro. And I couldn't stop crying those tears of joy the whole time.

If you can ask questions and listen to the answers, you can learn just about anything. Without the curiosity to ask, though, without the passion to find out the answers to questions, learning is really difficult.

So we've made another step. A big step. Towards what ... we're still finding out. Right now, based on the subjects about which he shows the most curiosity and for which he has the most passion, Billy's headed for a career as either a professional bowler, Dalmation breeder or pumpkin salesman. Or the world's greatest autistic comedian.

Ok, maybe comedian is still a stretch.

I'm making kidding. In your face.