Yay!

I'm so happy to report that Andrew's communication has taken a nice step forward these past few weeks. Given my job as a speech pathologist, I'm hypervigilant about both of my kids language development. I think it's a blessing and a curse :) Lily spoiled me because she was so imitative and had that desire to please. It took her time to feel confident to talk outside the home, but with Mommy and Daddy she picked up on language pretty effortlessly. Andrew is definitely charming and sweet, but he is not super imitative. Whenever I try to do some of my speech therapy methods on him he gets a glint in his eye and looks at me as if to say "Nice try speech-therapist-Mom. I'm going to do what I want to do when I want to do it." Still I've provided lots of language stimulation and watched him closely. If I'm 100% honest, I've known he's within normal limits for typical language development and wouldn't qualify for services, but I still wanted to see him talk more. I know, I know. Shame on me.

He's now 21 months old and his vocabulary is close to the 50 word mark. I think it's about 46-47 words. Still 50 words is when you typically see the 2 word combinations. Sure enough, he's starting to really create novel, 2 word utterances. I'm hearing things like "more cookies, all done book, daddy shoe, baby night night." Usually 24 months, 100 words and novel 2 word utterances is the big marker for typical development and so far Andrew is right on track. Of course, there are certainly kids at the same age who will be speaking in full sentences like "I want more juice." Still, I'm happy to see Andrew's development considering the lack of language stimulation he got in Taiwan, his prematurity and the language shift.

On a personal level, I'm so happy Andrew has finally gotten the concept of asking for help. I remember this being a big stress reducer for Lily and it's been the same for Andrew. Both of my kids had the desire to do things and explore and prior to be able to ask for help they'd squeal, shriek and yell when they found something frustrating. If I had a dime for everytime I said "Don't scream. Say 'help.'" Well finally, Andrew is coming to me with the problem (i.e. a wheel that is stuck, a container that needs opening) and clearing saying "hep!" Yesterday he came in from outside crawled up to the couch and stuck out his feet, pointed to his coat zipper and said "hep Momma" to request his shoes and coat off. It was too cute!
If I could give any advice to moms with early talkers I'd advocate teaching the concept of asking for help. It's really a stress reliever for all. Now, on the cynical side, Andrew has also learned the power of "no." I'm now hearing things like "no night night" and "no diaper." Apparently Andrew is also right on track with the terrible two's :)