Getting Chatty

"I dig, mama - this is dirt".

It has been awhile since I have posted an update on our progress with Ben's speech!

It is pretty amazing the amount of progress he has made since we started this process about 9 months ago.  I know that a lot of his development has been simply with age, but I also know that a lot of it has been due to the strategies and new ways to communicate we have learned.

We are continuing to work with a speech therapist 3-4 times a month, which we plan to do until he is 3 years old (which is when the program we are doing ends).  When we started with her, Ben was really only using about 15 single words to communicate with us.  Today, I cannot even count the number of words I hear from him in a day, and combine that with him starting to add several words together, well, he is starting to become his own little person :)

Some of the things we are hearing lately:

"Honey!!" - which he will call out to me in the mornings when he is ready to get up.

"Cake pop", which he learned from Maylee when Callie takes them through the Starbucks drive thru.  (Thanks a lot, Callie - it's now all I hear each time I am grabbing coffee with him, haha)!  One night, he even was talking in his crib before bed saying, "I want a cake pop".  Love it.

"Park, swing, dada, take" - each time we drive by one of the various parks Greg takes him to.

"It's funny" and " I'm happy" when describing his moods.  Every time my mom comes over, he will say "Grandma, happy!".  Adorable!

"Binkie, crib, nap" before nap time.

"I'm hungry", "Want a sip", "Snack, cup", "eat".

"Tickle dada - mama help!"

"I love you", which sounds more like "I you", and sometimes "Au jus", but is still the sweetest sound I've ever heard in my life.

When requesting an activity, it's always "I jump", or "I dump", or "I want to run", or: kick, kiss, hug, paper, dance, paint, outside, dig, blocks, brush (teeth), etc.

We also get a lot of narrative about what we are doing and seeing: "Drive up or drive down" when driving or walking up/down a hill or our driveway, "kitty", "doggy", and "I'm helping"!

"Please" and "thank you", which I'm very happy to have in the regular rotation of words!  And when he says them, I tell him that he is "so nice", which he will repeat after me in the funniest accent that sounds exactly like Borat.  "SO NICCCCCCCCCCCCCCE"!

"This is you!" when he sees any picture of himself.  Followed by "this is Ben", and finally "it's me"!

Ben also has started singing and humming, which is new and adorable.  I've also noticed him remembering and reciting parts of books both when reading them and even after the fact.

And this is just a sampling of what we are hearing lately.  It's so much fun to be able to get through an entire day with hardly any frustration on his part for not being able to get his point across.  Even when he doesn't get his way, it is a LOT easier to explain why and what we will be doing instead.

And while I do believe he is still a little behind where some of his peers are in terms of the number of words he says and how clearly he speaks, WE speak Ben fluently - and it's only going to be a matter of time before he catches up. :)