words

Those are the "words" that seem to come from Abby as of late.  Make no mistake about it... Abby most definitely expresses herself and lets you know what she wants and what she thinks - it just usually doesn't involve words. 

If she is happy and excited, she will usually tell you by her big smile, her hands clapping together, her little "jig" dance step, or her nodding of the head with a "yeah, yeah" to let you know "yes."

If she is upset or angry, she will ALWAYS screech & scream and hold up her hand to indicate "stop" and then proceed to point where she wants you to go (I don't mean that in the inappropriate way either).  Furthermore, you can see her anger in her face when she bites her lower lip with her teeth and furrows her eyebrows.  There is no mistaking when Abbigail is unhappy or angry.  It actually takes a lot of restraining on my part NOT to laugh; instead, I usually have to calm Abby down and often times she has to sit in timeout because she was being unreasonable in her reaction.  I certainly think that because she doesn't easily express what she wants/doesn't want - her frustration is more easily aroused and thus she gets upset more often.

Back to the "words" that Abbigail uses (and doesn't use) at the ripe old age of 22 months.  They are limited.  The list is short.  There are probably less than 15 words in total and only half of them are recognizable by only me and Brian and her teachers at school.  I used to be more worried than I am now especially when you hear from experts that at her age she should be getting comfortable using 2 word sentences and her word list should be somewhere up in the range of 40-100.  However, I have realized that I can't compare her to any other child, especially Thomas who seemed to be meeting those speech milestones.  She is going to start "talking" soon.  She is just working on her own time schedule.  Her lack of words are certainly no indication of her intellect and my gut tells me that there is nothing to worry about with her hearing (which could be impacting her speech ability).

I've even heard some experts (and parents alike) explain that it is very much like late-walkers... they are just ready when they are ready.  And when they are ready... they often times will just get up and start walking.  Similarly, late-talkers just start talking... its like the conversations with them just happens.  Forget about easing into one and two word sentences... its all out there and you might wonder where the "off" or "mute" button is after a short while.  Not me - I just want Abbigail to talk to me... with her words.  To me, that will be the sweetest sound.