Little Lady Language Development

There are moments in parenting that can take you breath away like when your child smiles for the first time or giggles hysterically. I myself had another one of those experiences recently with my Little Miss.

You see when Little Miss was around 18 months old, she had her language explosion! It has been delightful to watch ever since. It seems like she is learning a new word every week.  Last week, I witnessed my Little Miss articulate a new brand new word out of no where! I said "snacks" and she said "nacks." SO COOL! This was a once in a lifetime moment. I am so glad I was there!

Shortly after, I started to wonder how many words does she know at this point? So for the last few days I have been compiling a list of Little Miss' words.

Here is the list so far (hint-if you read this post really fast it sounds like a crazy word splash poem) Hi, Bye-Bye, Night-Night, Milk, No, Cheese, Chips, Nom-Noms, go, shoes, books, uh-oh, more, truck, all gone, ship, hop, toes, truck, box, clothes, poop, this, pull, lips, teeth, eyes, nose, up, nana (for banana), Nan-Nan (for Handy Manny), Yo-ho (for Jake and the Neverland Pirates), mine, fish, juice, hat, mom, dada, There it is, There she is, lights, bye poop.

Yes, my almost 2 year old can articulate a 3 word statement! Woohoo! I am very proud. I think my heart might actually explode when she finally says "I love you" or "I love you mom!"

Eventually, I would like to add "please" and "thank you" to that list. It is something we are currently working on. It is amazing how much she understands even if she can't fully articulate it! I can see why kids get frustrated sometimes because the know what they want, but we are having a hard time figuring it out as adults.

Like most doctors will tell you, there is no set time table for language development. Children will learn and develop at their own pace. Children at or around her age usually can say about 50 (give or take single words), but can understand well over 150 words according to research. Little Miss was a little quiet for a while, but once she got going with talking there was no going back! Soon we will be having full on conversations that aren't in "babynese," but let's not rush things too much.

I will gladly contuing talking to her (repeating myself or names over and over) and reading books to her because I know these simple and significant gestures are being heard, learned and understand in a profound way! Here is an interesting article on that note of "Activities to Boost Language Development: 18-24 Months" from Parents magazine. It made me smile to know that my hubby and I do some of these suggestions already!


Well, that's all for now from my realm of mommy! Take care and keeping talking....