We have words!

As many of you know, I have been anxiously awaiting Ian's first words. He did say "tree" consistently back at Christmas while we had a tree up, but once it was gone he resumed his constant babbling and jabbering without any real recognizable words.

I took him to the pediatrician's for a check up and a vaccination about three weeks ago. I am very close with this doctor, who's been with us through the journey of Abby's birth and first years, through her diagnosis, through the arrivals of Anna and Ian. He's respectful and listens to me about my fears of giving a baby so many shots during the first two years of their lives, etc...Together we have come up with a vaccination schedule that I feel is safer and makes me able to give my kids their shots without total terror in my soul. He ends up happy because although it may take twice as long, my kids do end up with all their shots before school. Anyhow, that day I told Dr. D. that I was concerned about Ian's lack of speech. I said that if he didn't have a minimum of ten words by 18 months (2 months away) that I would be requesting a speech evaluation right away. While I wasn't concerned about autism at that point, I was worried about a speech delay. Why put off getting help? Dr. D. agreed with me and proceeded to give Ian his shot. The VERY NEXT DAY we had an explosion of words. It's like Ian's shot *gave* him language instead of taking it away, lol.

In three short weeks, he is now saying a minimum of 15 words. More importantly, I can tell that he's had his "lightbulb moment". He gets it now....everything has a word associated with it. He is constantly pointing to things and saying "dah?". He wants to know what the word for that "thing" is.....yesterday he started calling a baby doll a "baby" and labeling it's body parts. Okay, he only says "eye", but still, lol. He's definitely behind where Anna was at this age, but I can tell that he's just getting started. He's consistently saying "bah-bye" while he waves good-bye and "hi" when someone comes or when he's "on the phone". He's saying dog, (dah) truck,(tuh) juice, (ssss) cheese (chsss) and ball (bah) reliably. And of course, the first word of all, "tree"(tee), is still a big one, especially right now while he's getting outside and seeing so many trees everywhere.

I feel so relieved. He's even saying mamamama a fair amount when he's around me. Still not sure it's a word, or "mama", but we're getting there.