Saturday, April 26, 2008

Language Delayed?



Let me back up to his 1 yr doctor's appointment. Back in January, all Alex was saying was da-da. But EVERYTHING was da-da. He would say it when John came home or when we pulled in the garage like he was anticipating seeing him so I knew he knew John as da-da, but like I said so was everything else. When the Dr. asked me about his words I said he only knew one. So the dr. said he was "slightly" expressive language delayed. I was like "oh no! My baby is gonna need a speech therapist and he's barely one!" But then I've also read enough books to know and heard from enough mothers that babies do things on their own time and they don't always meet the milestones early so I calmed down. But still, I knew his next appt. would be at 15 months and so we had JUST 3 months to learn a few more words. In March we went to St. Thomas for Spring Break with John's family. During that week he exploded with new things. He started dancing, pointing to me when someone asked "where's mama?" (well about 1/2 the time, but I count it!), and saying "woof woof" and "moo." I knew animal sounds counted so now we had three words in his vocabulary. I was soo excited. I thought for sure we would have a few more by the time April 18th rolled around, but no. He is now 15 months old and knows three words. :) Sometimes when you ask him what a duck says he says "ack ack." And sometimes I think he says "hot" but it comes out like "ha." He says it though when he sees the oven or something on top of the stove, so that counts right? He even points to the toaster oven and says it. So just in writing this I realize he has more than 3 words. Because sometimes he also says "du" for duck. Does that count? When I told the dr. he had 3 words he said he was the bottom average of what they wanted 15 month olds to know.

The funny things is I wrote the top part of this post a couple of days ago. I had it saved as a draft and couldn't figure out how to edit it. BUT Just tonight he started holding his hand out and saying "stop!" When John would tickle him or aggravate him I put my hand out (like in the hand motion to the song "Stop in the name of Love") and said "Stop." He started doing it to John. It was HILARIOUS!! He doesn't exactly say the p sound but he's close and you can tell he's copying me. It's amazing how quickly he picks up on things.

Above are some pictures of Alex in St. Thomas

4 comments:

  1. i am loving your blog! i don't think you have anything to worry about. wait atleast until he is about 18 months old. he will start learning more all the time. preston just started talking a lot more.

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  2. Don't stress they do everything on their own time. Kaylyn was a little behind onher talking when she tyurned a year old and we were very concerned. Her Dr. told us that it was ok she would come around and boy did she. Now I can't get her or Julia to be quite. Drew will never be able to get a word in.

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  3. I think he's just the strong, silent type! :) In a few weeks he's gonna bust out with all sorts of stuff, and you'll be wishing for a little quiet time! :)

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  4. The "stop" thing is funny. Don't worry until it's time to worry.

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