A light goes on

Well, despite being in the middle of a few rough days, Esmé is just blowing us away with her words.

Like many low-tone children Esmé struggles to produce sound clarity and variety. She clearly understands a wide variety words and increasingly complex requests. She selects between a variety flashcard images (dog, firetruck, apple, etc) and objects. She turns pages in her books, helps take off her shirt, and sticks out her tongue when we ask (most of the time–she is two, after all). As we experiment with these sorts of activities Ezzy shows us over and over that her receptive language (and, therefore, her cognition) is very good for any child who has spent most of her life sick.

But her expressive communication is quiet limited. She has made the “Mamama” and “Mmmmm” sounds for quite awhile now. Certainly she says “Maman” with clear intention: to get my attention or to “talk” about me. For example, at our night time routine I usually read her books before bed, Papa might ask her “Are you going to read books and go night night?” and it wouldn’t be surprising to hear her say excitedly, in response, “Maman” (as in: I’m doing this with Maman).

She also has produced variations of the “N” sound and a series of vowel sounds for a time. She can make non-verbal significant sounds also: a blowing sound for “bubbles” and a panting sound to indicate “dog.” She has signed a few words a variation of “more” and “dog,” but, generally speaking, her tone prevents the motor skills involved in signing.

The last few weeks, however, her sounds have taken off. It started a few nights back when I was rocking her and she started an hour long marathon of “Mama nana aaaahhh ah ah.” A few days later I thought I heard a “Bahbuhbah” sound  the other day as I got her into her car seat…

Then we started hearing “Dadada” and “Bababab” with more regularity. Two nights ago my hubby–who we refer to as both Papa and Dada–was out of the room for a few minutes. Ezzy started “Dada dada….dada.” When he appeared, she exploded into smiles: She had been asking for him, I am certain. She continued to chat until she fell asleep…and she woke up the following morning and sprung right back into words.

It seems in the chaos and noises of the day she is pretty quiet…but at night and in the early morning, she is full of sounds. Sometimes she seems to just be playing with noise, other times she seems to have a message. Sometimes we don’t understand and she has these (very unfamiliar) moments of toddler frustration. Sometimes we do understand and confirm the sound back to her–and she seems so pleased with herself.

But all of the time what is clear is that a light has gone on–she knows she can produce some of the sounds Maman and Papa make. And she is trying to tell us all about it…