Thursday, June 12, 2014

Toddler-isms

Remember how Reagan wasn't talking much?

She is now.

After many months of "not being worried" (defined as "worried, but know that I shouldn't be, so I'll claim I am not worried at all") and then just "getting an evaluation just out of interest" (defined as "totally freaking out but still parroting that every child develops at their own pace and worrying about what evaluators might see")...Reagan still wasn't really talking. Not interested in repeating words, still much more interested in communicating her needs via scream, and babbling in another language.

But her evaluation told us she was basically a nimble, highly intelligent, advanced kid with a less than one month speech delay. Which is basically not a delay at all; in fact, they called her speech average for a 2 year old.

Right. Of course.

Wait, what?

Seriously? 

I now had this evaluation to calm me, but I was still a bit worried. Because they also said she'd develop clarity and vocabulary pretty quickly over the next couple of months. And I wasn't seeing it. And it wasn't just that I was comparing to Madison. Comparing your kids is bad. And it wasn't just that I was comparing her to every other two year old we encountered. Comparing your kids to other kids is bad. It was just...I really just wasn't seeing a ton of language growth.

Yeah. I do now.

In the past month Reagan has added considerably to her vocabulary (at least half of which is Disney, but whatever). She's using short sentences, she's answering questions, she's naming shapes and colors and numbers. Sure, half the time I don't understand her, and when she has a lot to say or is upset about something it still comes out as jibberish, but she is light years ahead of where she was three months ago.

This is great for so many reasons, but one of the best, is that I get to hear those toddler-isms again. Those mispronunciations that are so adorable you don't want to correct them and you ask leading questions so you can hear them over and over. Then they disappear, seemingly overnight, and you find yourself with a kid, one who doesn't sound like a baby. And it makes you sad.



One of my favorites of Madison's todder-ism vocabulary was "hop-si-pop", which naturally, was how she said "popsicle". That kid got us to give her hundreds of popsicles the summer she was two, simply because we loved how she asked.

Now it's time for Reagan, and she has a few super sweet ones that I need to record now, because they are just way too cute to last long.

Now it's quiz time. See if you can tell what these words are supposed to be.



Go ahead, say them out loud. In a two year old voice. I'll wait.

Are you doing it?

Is someone secretly recording you? Check. You don't want to end up on YouTube.

Ok, time's up!

If you guessed...



Then you are correct.

And since you're so good, can you be on call to translate?


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