Talk to Me, Baby!

Baby O

"They" say that its pretty common for the baby in the family to have some developmental delays.  My kid's pediatrician told me that the "baby" in a family typically learns to kind of go-with-the-flow: They just let others do things for them.  And… that seems to be the case for my (not-so) Baby O.  He's a pretty smart kid, but he's just not much of a talker.

At O's 18 month well-visit (at 19 months) he was only saying a few words ("dad" & "up") and his pediatrician was a little concerned about his verbal development.  He was understanding absolutely everything, and he has always been a great listener, but he just didn't make many attempts at verbally communicating.  Up until that point, I will admit I did very little to even encourage him to talk.  I guess the "theory" is correct in our situation, because when he pointed, I'd just give him what he wanted.  I would always say the word, but I never really encouraged him to say anything in return.

So, I came home from his appointment with a new goal: Get this boy to talk!  In the last few weeks I've read all about speech therapy, talked to those who have had children in speech therapy, watched speech therapy in action on YouTube, let him watch either the Baby Babble DVD or a Signing Time DVD during lunch, AND I've tried my very best not to give O ANYTHING without some kind of verbal request.

Watching the Baby Babble DVD

I must say, the past month he has made incredible progress.  Just in the first few days he added the words: ball, bike, bath, pop, eat, in, up, cracker, cookie, truck, car, hi, bye-bye, boat, and night-night.  And now a few weeks later, he'll practically repeat anything.  I honestly can not even count the number of words he can say.  I've also noticed in the last few days that he's tried to make some verbal requests without pointing or signing.  He'll just be sitting next to me on the couch and say "crack-cur" (cracker).

So I'm pretty confident now that it won't be too much longer and he'll be right on track verbally... And I can't wait to find out what he'll have to say.  He's pretty hilarious non-verbal, so I can only imagine the things that will come out of his mouth when he starts really talking.

Goofy O!

This Boy Cracks Me Up!!

My Cutie!