A couple of years ago I wrote a post about the words that Sarah knew at 18 months. I just went back and referenced, and her vocabulary at that point was about 21 words or so. Now I know she's a girl, and I know you should never compared one child to another but at Liam's 18 month appointment I was concerned that Liam knew very few works. I didn't write down what he knew (or didn't) but I'm pretty sure it was limited to Mommy, Daddy, Sarah and maybe a few other words, and it was enough that our pediatrician said if he wasn't making marked progress by 2 years that he would be referred for speech therapy.
With Sarah I would have been freaking out. She was also a late talker, but I read somewhere somehow that children who are exposed to more than one language growing up are often later to talk because it takes their brains some time to sort out which language is which. So when Liam was also not talking, I figured he'd catch up, because anyone who has had a conversation with Sarah, um, ever, realizes that she is quite the verbose child. And I had video proof I wasn't being crazy because we took Sarah to Disney at 20 months, so we have plenty of iPhone proof of her talking up a storm. Then I went to Korea for 10 days, and when I came back, it was a different child than when I left. He talked! Not that he didn't before, but his vocabulary was exponentially larger. I can't do the same post for Liam that I did for Sarah, because he knows too many words, and it keeps growing everyday. We have a "color" book with lots of different pictures, and going through and pointing out the objects is one of his favorite bedtime games (though he's still not too good at the actual colors). You can't play "Headbandz" around him Liam, because he'll just walk up to you, point at your head and say "swing", thereby ruining the game. He even knows more idiomatic speech at this point. If you tell him that he has to do something he doesn't want to (get his diaper changed) before he can do something he wants (build a tower) he looks at you and says "deal".
I think I babied Liam longer than Sarah mostly because he was still a baby. He has his baby fat and he didn't talk, and even though he was approaching two, he was still my baby. But I can't do that anymore. He is a toddler. He talks, he sasses, he laughs, he plays, he's a growing boy. And I don't know why stringing words together makes him seem so much older, but it does. His speech currently resembles more caveman than future Harvard alumni, but he is improving. While sitting beneath the "People Remover" at Disney (more about that later) he heard the ride above him and said "I hear Mickey!". His first complete sentence referencing Disney? That's my boy!
But back to his two year check up. Our pediatrician had written down at 18 months to discuss his speech again. So she asked me how I thought he was doing. And I responded I had no worries. So she asked, "does he have at least 10 words?" And I nodded.. "More than 30?" Tia asked? And again, I didn't even have to think twice about that number. "More than 50?" she queried again? And I felt pretty confident in answering in the affirmative.
And yes, when I went home I did count just to make sure he had more than 50. I pulled out that color book that he likes identifying pictures in, and I reached 50 words before I got to the "Green" page, which is the fourth page in the book. I'm sure there will be many more things to worry about in the future, but speech (for now) isn't one of them.
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