The day I was preparing to bring my daughter home from the hospital, a nurse told me something that I will never forget. She said, ”Whatever you do, don’t get hung up on milestones. You can read all the books in the world about what kids should be doing, but the kids don’t read any of them. They do things in their own time.”
I took her words to heart and have since tried my best not to allow “The Experts” or my little girl’s playgroup pals determine where she should be developmentally. I’m not going to lie, I did give myself a secret pat on the back when she took her first steps at 10 months, but for the most part I’ve been content letting her learn and explore the world on her own terms. That’s most likely due to the fact that she’s right on track in most areas. But there is one milestone that I can’t help but worry about: her language development.
While most kids her age we know are putting together simple sentences, (some of these little showoffs are even saying words in other languages!) at 21-months-old, my daughter’s vocabulary consists merely of “hi,” “bye,” “dada” and “uh-oh.” The rest is a series of grunts and unintelligible babble, which makes communication almost impossible at times.
Fearing the worst, I decided to go against my promise and consult “The Experts.” I combed the Internet for any information I could find on toddler language development. After all, if something was really wrong, I wanted to find out as soon as possible.
I inhaled tons of information until I was able to conclude that my daughter would just need a little more time before she started gabbing along with the rest of her friends. I’ll admit, most of my paranoia probably stems from an unrealistic dream for her to graduate cum laude from Harvard and become the first Black female to win the Nobel Prize in Physics (unless she inherits my aversion to math and science).
It’s obvious that she understands when her father and I are speaking to her. She happily points to her various body parts on demand, playfully hides when I ask her if she is responsible for the mess on the kitchen floor and violently shakes her head “no” when I tell her it’s time for bed. So is she holding back on purpose? Is her silence nothing more than one of her first acts of defiance?
In the meantime, we’ve tried all of “The Experts’” suggested techniques to coax a few more words out of her. We read books, review flash cards and talk to her constantly, but get nothing but a blank stare in response. I try to be as patient as possible, and am learning to interpret her various grunts. Besides, one day, when she’s yelled “Mommy” for the one-hundredth time in a row or is whining about how unfair I am, I’m sure I’ll wonder why I was so anxious for her to start talking in the first place!
