Everything started off great. Dr. N proceeded to examine Micah, who complied with a grin. That's my kid, I thought proudly. "Oh, he has quite an expressive personality! So cute!" Dr. N. said. I smiled. Next came the developmental questions. Yes, he sleeps through the night...of course he rides in a carseat...yes, he is running, climbing, and jumping... Piece of cake. Then, a surprise.
"Does he know his colors?" asked Dr. N.
"Well, no. He's not quite two yet. Isn't that a three year old thing?" I answered.
"What about counting?"
"Ummm. Not really. He likes the number two a lot though."
"How many words does he say?"
"Gosh, I've never counted them. Well...probably...at least twenty or so, I think."
Silence and scribbling. Uh oh.
"We should keep an eye on that," Dr. N. told me. "I'm sure he'll start picking things up soon. Just for reference, most children know at least fifty words by the time they are two."
My heart sank. Maybe we haven't been reading to him enough, I began to wonder. I'm sure we read to Kaleb a lot more...but he wasn't as active...Micah never wants to sit down long enough to read. I haven't even tried teaching him colors...or numbers...or even puzzles. We make silly faces and animal noises quite a bit though. I wished there was a test for that. We got in to the car and I began to count. He knows "momma-s" - that's one. "Daddy-s" - that's two. It counts if it they are always plural, right? "Crackers" - that's three...
By the time I'd left Fishers, I'd made it to forty-six. I began to feel better, but couldn't quite give up there.
Hmmm. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few, I thought. Maybe I could teach him some on the way home.
"Micah, can you say 'sign'?"
"Siiiiine," came from the back seat.
Great. Only three more.
By the end of the day we were well into the fifties and I was resisting the urge to call and ask the pediatrician to remove the blemish from Micah's chart. Randy told me I was crazy.
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Fast forward two weeks. Micah has been learning new words at an amazing rate. It's like a switch in his brain was recently turned to ON. He even learned how to say his own name yesterday...and is so proud of saying, "Bmicah." His pronunciation sounds a bit like he has a cold...but it works.
I was tucking in my sweet almost-two-year-old with his beloved stuffed animals - an adorable lamb (I bought that one), a hideous blue shark, and a somewhat obnoxious singing bunny. I often wonder what has led this child to become so attached to such a strange crowd of sleeping buddies? Anyway, Micah kept repeating the word, "Baaaasssh". It sounded very much like the word "bash", just longer. And when Micah wants us to know something, he will repeat it over and over and OVER until we understand. Amazing determination in this kid. Well, I tried and tried, and simply couldn't guess what he meant.
"Bath?" I guessed.
"No," came his quick reply.
"Shower?" (similar to bath in his mind).
"No".
"Ummm, bunny?" I already knew the answer to that one. The word bunny is pronounced "ahsooo." Makes sense to him.
"No."
I finally distracted him with the singing bunny and kissed him goodnight. However...I'm sure you can imagine what his first word was the next morning. Yep, "baaassh", bright and early. Incredible. I wondered if he had been lying awake all night trying to remember his new word. How can young brains remember certain things so easily? Randy took him in to the bathroom for a change and he spotted my hairbrush with a goofy grin. "Baaaash!" Pheew. We'd figured it out.
And...that makes seventy-two, doc. Not that I'm counting. :)
