Excuse me? What did you say?

Excuse me? What did you say?
(November 2009)

When Jacob first said his first word at 9 months old (other than Mama or Dada) I was all excited and started watching and listening for all the new words that would be exploding out of his mouth. Little did I know that new words would be added but no real explosion would happen for almost 20 months! Jacob has always followed the "speaking" milestones right on cue. If the milestone says "by *this month* your child should know 20+words" Jacob knew/spoke about 20+ words. When at 2 years old it said that "Most 2 year olds should be able to say 110 words and say 2-3 word sentences" Jacob had about that many and spoke in 2-3 word sentences.

I just assumed that Jacob was never going to have his "explosion" of words like I had been told by NUMEROUS mothers/parents that all kids have. So I was very excited when over the past three weeks Jacobs speech has gone from 100+ words to literally 250+ words! Now about 90% of these words I feel any Joe Schmo could walk off the street and understand what Jacob is saying but then about 10% even I have to get Jacob to repeat sometimes before I even know what he is saying.

Jacob is still having problems with certain letters like S,V, Z and F. He also will replace letters sometimes in words where I know he doesn't need to. Like he can say "CAT" with the K sound but then if something is broke he will say "UH OH MAMA IT BROTE" and then he can tell me the sound of a snake is "SSSSSSSSSSSSSS" but will tell me that a spider is a "Rider". I have been working with him and modeling certain speech problems that I know he has, but those conversations usually go something like this!

Me: Jacob what is that?

Jacob: RIDER

Me: That's right, it's a SSSSSSpider

Jacob: RIDER

Me: Jacob, look at my mouth, SSSSSSSSSpider

Jacob: SSSSSSSSSSSS (loooooong pause) RIDER!

Me: (feeling defeated) GOOD JOB!