A few weeks ago Boof and I looked at each other and both proclaimed that we were worried. I think it was sparked by a BabyCenter email that said “your toddler at X months” and basically said that our kid was behind in language development. Which of course freaked us out. We’ve been mostly mellow parents thus far, but certain things hit my vulnerable spots (like gaining enough wait in the first 2 weeks). So we decided that if Potamus wasn’t talking by 2 we’d get him evaluated.
And yet, our speech language pathologist friend says that Potamus is really advanced in understanding complex instructions, and that she’s not worried about him. And clearly we shouldn’t be, either, since I realized that his “idont’reallyknow” noise he makes to say no is him repeating ME when I say “eh, I don’t really know” when I’m trying to say “No,” to Boof, but I don’t want to come outright and say No. And in the past two weeks he’s been saying ‘uh oh,’ “baa (for ball)’ and waa (water) and, shrugging his shoulders and making a noise like “wherediditgo?”
My kid is talking. Granted, he’s clearly not hearing the breaks between my words, since I do tend to speak fast and slur things together. He’s repeating my exact intonation, with phrases coming out like one big word. I’m no longer worried that he’s going to not be talking. In fact, I think he’ll probably be so chatty that I might need to wear earplugs. I swear he also said our dog’s name yesterday.
But Uh Oh is my favorite thing he says. It’s so sweet, especially when he drops something and looks at me with those big eyes. Precious. His language has been slow in coming, that I don’t even think I’ll be able to pinpoint it in his baby book.
In other news, he’s now developed a sweetly sick habit of kissing me…on the mouth…with his snotty nose dripping all over. He loves kissing me, the dog, his stuffed toys, his dolly. It’s so sweet, but also really really germy…..
boof & monk-monk 