Maresy at ~20 months

She is sweet, sweet, sweet.  Likes to be held.  Loves her mama.  Frequently covered in stickers.  Likes hugs and kisses.  Big brown eyes.  Kinda curly hair just long enough for french braids.  Just got really tall and lean.  Tough.  Likes to climb.  Desperately wants to jump in the air.  Definition of water baby.  Has mostly gotten over the hitting. :)  Might be labeled food-aggressive if she were a pound puppy - raspberries in particular.  Still crazy for baby dolls and animals.  Likes to do things herself - feeding, brushing teeth, carrying own bag into school.  Not sure if she is left or right-handed yet - likes to switch when feeding or coloring.  Recently in love with books.

Maren meets the mountains

We are concerned because she is not really talking.  She seems to understand everything, but her words are limited:  Mama, Dada (brand new and rarely heard as of now), ba-bee (baby), -bee (Toby), wawa, hot, pop (like pop the bubbles), animal sounds that all kind of sound the same (like a kitty of course), pa (pacifier), uppp/eppp (up/help - kind of interchangeable), fowa (flower), woooaaaaahhh, hi, ba (ball), ba-ba (also ball or maybe balloon).  Can you see why Annie wanted to bring her to school for "B" Share Day?  She nods "yes" frequently and shakes her head "no" occasionally.  She must be one of the only 20 month olds who doesn't say no.  Anyway, she is coming along, just slowly.  Long-term, I am not worried.  She is a bright and curious little girl.  Short-term, I'm concerned.  Right now, she is only a bit behind, but Maren is only getting further behind as her peers learn more and more language skills while her progression is agonizingly slow.

For those sans toddler, 18-24 month milestones look like this: puts 2-3 words together; e.g. "go bye bye" (no), has vocabulary of fifty to several hundred words (no), says names of toys (no), says own name and "my" and "mine" (not really but I think lately I have heard "my" a bit).  Yes, she has several months to "catch up" to meet two-year old milestones, but there are other concerns.  She never really said "ba, ba, ba, ba; pa, pa, pa, pa; da, da, da; etc." as an infant.  She is kind of quiet, except for her "mmmmm's" and her grunts.

When she started school in June, I never said anything about her talking because I was curious about what they thought.  (Was I being crazy?)  It took them over a month (albeit she only goes 2-3 days a week) to ask if she talked.  When I said no, they said, "she doesn't talk here either but we didn't realize it because she is so communicative."  The other thing her teacher (whom I love - mostly because she is also in nursing school) said was, "the words are in there.  She just doesn't know how to get them out."  That is the most apt description of Maren.  I know, she absolutely might just be a late talker, a bit of a perfectionist, who is waiting to come out with full sentences.  But Maybe Not.

She is having her hearing tested next week to rule that out as an issue.  I am 99.99% sure she hears just fine.  Then we shall see.  Stay tuned...