Where Is His Off Button?

Cole has always been a chatty kiddo. Back when he was a toddler, he would babble on and on in his "language". As his mom, through deductive listening and inquiry (and much repetition on his part), I learned his "language" and could interpret his speech when everyone else would look at me and say "what did he say?". I would state over and over to him the proper pronunciation of whatever I knew he meant, knowing that his developing mind would in time, put all the sounds together and astoundingly spit them out in recognizable verse. That process simply amazed me. Then followed his "WHY" stage. Every object, sound, and sight he curiously questioned. This phase did not amaze me as it was purely irritating after the 50th "WHY" within a two hour period; however, it did give me pause to remember that this stage was vital to his brain synapses firing at full throttle. As a first time mom, I read a lot of parenting "stuff" and read some article, amongst the hundreds, about the importance of exposing little ones to a grand host of things as brain cells digest information more rapidly when they are young and "fire" up areas that would otherwise go dormant if not. As he entered his early preschool years, his imagination came to life. He could independently play with himself and his "friends". I would stand out of sight and smile as I listened to him use dialogue as if there were two people speaking. He would change his tone and inflection to represent the "other" person. I always chuckled when he used a word that I commonly would use when speaking with him. I never baby-talked to him, I always used my normal vocabulary and he was correctly using those words in context. In the past six months or so, Cole has taken his talkative nature to a whole other level. To say he has become loquacious would be a grand understatement. He could talk a politician to death. When he gets on a roll, you can't help but remind him to breathe. It doesn't matter the subject, you can find him animated about any random number of things. You would be lucky to comment and if you attempt to do so and he isn't receptive, he'll furrow his brow as a deterrent of sorts and continue on with his dissertation. We joke with him about frequently about his "off" button, which long ago we defined as his belly button and which seems to be in a constant state of disrepair, LOL. We "push it" into OFF mode and Cole does one of two things, pretends to shut off momentarily and then spring to life again as he pushes himself back ON or he'll say something like "out of order" or similar. Cole is like a car that just needs to completely run out of gas before it stops working. He operates on all cylinders from 5:30 in the morning until 8 at night and not until then begins to sputter. Some days I wish there was an override mode on his "engine" but alas he seems to have only an internal "reset" button that works properly.