new words ...

When Dizzle (my child who never stops talking) was younger, she had a speech delay. At the age of two, she said three words. Mama, Dada and Baby. The rest of her vocabulary was jibberish. Jibberish that J and I mostly understood.

It turns out that we were anticipating all of Dizzle's needs, thus she had no reason to talk. We enrolled her in speech therapy and at the end of her first eight week cycle, she was discharged. And from that moment on, she hasn't stopped talking.

Doodle, on the other hand, has had typical vocabulary development. If all the books said she should have 50 words by X age, then that is exactly what she did. To J and I, she seemed incredibly intelligent. But, really, she was just like every other kid (she just seemed to speak so much better than other kids, since we were used to Dizzle's speech patterns)

Then came Dilly. And we really didn't know what to expect. Our pediatrician suggested that she may speak early, having two older siblings as a guide. But we also knew that she might end up like Dizzle, only she would have four people anticipating her needs instead of two.

As it turns out, our pediatrician was right. Dilly has a crazy vocabulary. She has been speaking in 2-4 word phrases for months. She repeats everything she hears from song lyrics (her current favorites are Baby by Justin Bieber and Follow Me Down by 30H!3) to the crazy things that come out of her sisters' mouths.

In the past few days, she has taken a real liking to naming body parts. She sits there and point at the body part and says it's name. She has had toes and nose down for a while. Then she added mouth and eyes and ears. And thanks to Doodle, who ran around our house naked yesterday, Dilly has a new favorite - boobies. Which comes out more like, "oooo, boobies".

Just what you really hope your 18 month old will say while you are out in public ...