Ava Judge (Her Majesty) is nearing 20 months. 20 nearly silent months. She says about 5 words and signs about 15. We know that she could not hear from 6 months to 9 months due to huge effusions in both ears. However her hearing has been retested and is completely normal. She has had a speech eval and they have determined there is no reason she can not talk. She simply will not and why should she? Her brothers are more than happy to do it for her.
Two weeks ago during speech theraphy Ava did not utter a single solitary peep. Then we went to Target and she said "HI" to everyone in the store. I looked like one of those idiots in the commercials encouraging people to talk/read to their kids. Reading every sign, telling her the name, color, use of anything we passed. She would sign or make a noise and I would be all excited. These two old women looked at me sadly like "ohhh, her poor baby is special". Yeah she is special...but not "special" ok!
Last week we got a few peeps at speech therapy. At the checkout at Target (yeah I go EVERY week) the cashier said "does she talk yet?" NOOOOO. Not yet. Yeah I guess the fact the cashier recognizes us is an indicator its self of a problem.
Then we went to Michael's. Cashier-"Oh she is getting so big! Is she talking yet?" NOOOOO. Um and apparently an indicator of yet another problem...are we seeing a shopping related theme here?
I have been asked:
- Do you talk to her? Um yeah dumb ass. Can't ya tell-nobody puts her majesty in the corner.
- Do you read to her? Yeah I have a freaking library. She can sign the word for book. What do you think?
- Maybe you should put her in speech. Thanks but she is...2 silent times a week.
- Oh you poor dear, is your baby deaf? My answer to this was just NO. The woman looked confused but I signed "weirdo" to Ava and we kept going.
She is special. Especially spoiled. She will talk when she is ready and I'm ok with that...why can't everyone else be?
She's ADORABLE! She'll talk when she's good and ready.
ReplyDeleteShe'll talk when she's good and ready and you'll probably never hear the end of her! She looks and sounds adorable :) Don't let those people bother you!
ReplyDeleteMy boy is 19 months and only has a few words he uses: Ball, mama and milk are the three main ones. We have maybe 4 or 5 that might get used at othertimes, but only if we coax.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, as everyone else says, she'll talk your ear off soon enough :)
I love your bit about signing weirdo to Ava! That cracks me up!
ReplyDeleteAs I'm sure you well know, by the time you've had a kid or two, you're more than happy if they don't talk early... we know now that once they start, they don't shut up!! haha!
ReplyDeleteMy little one was/is the same way. He'll be two in November and just now is starting to talk. I would alternate between being worried and being fine with him not talking. He signed and he understood everything we said to him and he could always get his point across. He just would not talk. He never repeated words like my older daughter did (she was talking on the early side), and sometimes he would let words slip out on his own, but if we asked him to say anything, he just looked at us blankly.
I have a friend who has a little boy almost exactly the same age (her first) who had the same "speech delay". She was worried about it and went through all sorts of testing and evaluations and he started speech therapy. He's now starting a word explosion. Funny thing is, so is my Sawyer... without the therapy! I knew it was just a matter of time, he'll do it when he wants to/needs to do it kind of thing. I mean, they're not even two years old for goodness sakes! How many of us hear stories about how we didn't talk when we were little till we were almost three!
Sawyer is now saying a dozen new words a day, and granted he is definitely behind by a few months, but I'm sure it'll all even out soon enough. He's definitely making up for lost time.
All that to say, as long as they're understanding, getting their point across (most of the time) and you know their ears are good... then no worries! It's funny how so much comparison happens in between kids and expectations. The only reason I let myself feel any worry about why Sawyer wasn't talking was when all my friends around me (with boys the same age) would talk about how much their's were talking. They were also all the first born. Like you said, Sawyer really didn't need to talk because he had his big sister to do it for him. I think he's very proud of himself now that he's decided to use his own voice, instead of hers, but I think that's completely normal.
Sorry for the rambling comment! Just wanted you to know I can relate!
Thanks for the support guys! She learned too cute new signs last night...funny bunny and shrimp. She kept signing shrimp to Cade and he was really pissed.
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