Bigger and better adventures

Talia is a master of doing things differently to your average or textbook baby. As we sometimes say at home, “we don’t do normal”.

Her first word was “cat”, and she said “okay” (yes) weeks before she learned to say no. It was starting to bother me that, even with a vocab which passed 10 words, then 30, then 60, she still didn’t have a word for me - her mummy. I use the word mummy all the time, and if I asked where mummy was, she would point at me - so I knew she understood the word and what it meant. But months passed and if she wanted me, she just said “euuuuurgh!”

Then, on New Year’s morning, she pointed at me and said “maaa” and I was pretty happy with that, but the real word finally arrived last night. We were eating dinner when she pointed at me and said, perfectly clearly, “mum!” The tears of happiness welled up in my eyes (not hard, as I was feeling quite emotional after leaving her weeping at the childcare centre earlier in the day.) Finally, after about 90 other words, she has found the one word that means the most to me.

I feel like I’ve been given the most wonderful gift of love.

Today, by complete coincidence, we had 2 appointments at the child development centre.

Audiology - a follow up from one last winter, to be sure that the sluggishness at that time was only due to a cold and nothing else.

Talia turned to hear all the sounds played - they asked if I wanted them to actually look in her ears but knowing how much she hates anyone touching her ears (major screaming sesson), I decided not to worry about it. No need to see them again.

Speech pathology - a first appointment after a referral made in (drumroll) May 2008! Can you tell they don’t have enough SPs in the public system here? I would have gone private if I was really worried, but figured Talia would catch up in her own time.

I had a lovely surprise before we went. They had sent a form asking how many words she said spontaneously (ie not just copying you) and I had filled it out in December but now went over it again and was able to circle a heap more words. I thought it was going to be about 60 words, but including animal noises, names of characters etc, it was more like 90. In perspective: 15 months - no clear words. 18 months - less than 10 words. 21 months - 90 words. So proud of my little cherub.

At the appointment Talia was brilliant, played with all the toys, even came out with a new word while we were there. The SP said she is well on the way to the 2 year average which is basically (a) 50 words and (b) two word sentences. We don’t have 2 word sentences yet, but apparently they usually consist of object + describing word or doing word, and Talia knows lots of objects but says very few describing/doing words. So that’s what I’ll be trying to concentrate on while I’m playing with her. The SP also said she is great at commenting and understands what’s being said, but isn’t so good at using language for “social purposes” - for example she doesn’t call for attention or make requests much using words. So that’s something else we’ll be trying to work on. We’re going to have a follow up appoinment in 3-4 months time.

To top the day off, Talia ate a huge (for her) amount of ravioli for dinner… so I’m very happy on all counts!