Jack turned 15 months old the older day. It was the first 'month' birthday that I wasn't aware of on the actual day. I HAVE BEEN aware that Jack hasn't been using many words - well, recognizable words; he chatters all the time, often preaching to us, other kids, or to the sidewalk.
He has said "apple" once and a few months ago sputtered an "all done." Since then, he's muttered mama and dada indescriminately - never actually calling us by name. But, that's it. I started re-reading Martha Beck's "Expecting Adam" the other night. In her memoir, Beck talks about her children, including her 18-month old who talks - even speaks short sentences. All I can think is, hell, Jack's only three months away from 18 months and he has yet to put word to its object.
Not that I'm worried, of course. I'm definitely am not the kind of parent to worry about someone else's general standards for development (well, maybe a little bit).
The real reason I'm not so worried is that tonight Jack figured out a word and said it again and again- repeating it after us. One of his new favorite things is to squeal at the stoplights because of Dr. Suess' book, "Go Dogs Go!" For those of you not familiar with the book, there are two lines that Jack loves: "Stop dogs stop the light is red," and "Go dogs go it's green ahead." At every stop light we say the first line and when it turns green - guess what we say then. Jack loves it. Tonight he was saying something that sounded like "toe" but when Ed repeated "go" I turned around to see Jack trying to form his mouth to say "go" and his "toe" started to sound like "go" (or "tgo"). He said it again and again, with each green light, and after Ed would say it. He NEVER repeats words that we say - almost a kind of "yeah, I know the word, and you know the word so why put on a show?" attitude, which, frankly I can understand. But tonight, it was as if he figured out he could control his own mouth to say a word. And he was clearly happy about it.
I tell you, it was pretty cool.
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