AJ's first two word sentence-kind of

AJ just came up to me and did the signs for "eat" and "more" back to back to ask for more crackers!! That is his first official two word sentence--even if it is in sign language instead of actual speech. The reason this is significant is because it means his level of understanding speech is right on target for an almost 2 yr old. I'm also impressed because he took two signs that he knows and formulated a plan in his head for how to use those to get what he wanted. I'm not exactly surprised he was able to do this because he's always seemed fairly intelligent. But, it is definitive proof that he's where he needs to be and that as soon as his ability to form words catches up with his understanding his speech will take off at lightning speed. Not unlike his older sister and brother, of course.

I must say, this late speech development becomes easier and easier to deal with the more you go through it. Kaeli started talking right at 2, Ryan at 3......chances are I wouldn't get too concerned about AJ until age 4. But, I'm confident it won't take him that long. He already has several words and will try to say lots more words--they just sound nothing like the target word. But, the important thing is that he's trying and he IS communicating! One thing I find funny is that AJ's word for train is exactly the same as Ryan's first word for train. The word he uses is "eee". We never understood why Ryan chose such an unusual substitution for the word. But, even more strange to me is that AJ has chosen the exact same substitution. (Ryan does say it correctly now, so it didn't come from hearing Ryan-I don't think). Interesting!