Communication Attempts

It seems to me that good communication- whether it's with your husband, your sister, your parents, your friends- is never super easy. I find that many verbal exchanges leave me confused and a little bit exhausted.  That's definitely the case these days with my baby.

Collins has been attempting to communicate with us for months now. It all started back in early December when she said "bye bye" for the first time. We thought this was the start of a verbal barrage, but not so much. She continued to say "bye bye" for the next few months but only these words and ONLY IN A WHISPER. Bizarre. Well, she has finally found her voice and now says her fave words out loud and has picked up a few more along the way.

Ma-ma (yah!)
Baa (ball?)
Ut-oh (she drops things a lot)
Lubba lubba lubba (she has found her tongue)

What surprises me is the amount of non-verbal communication that she is engaging in. Examples:

"Take me there"- when we get her out of the crib in the morning, she immediately points and stretches  in the direction she wants to go and what she wants to see. Usually she wants to grab a stuffed animal or touch something up high (chandelier, picture frame, vase, etc.).

"Feed me breakfast"- (not so subtle) she starts pulling and shaking the baby gate at the top of the stairs announcing she wants to go downstairs and eat.

"Hold me"- she stands in front of us and grabs as high as she can with her little hands asking for a pick up.

"I want that and want it NOW"- uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh (with the sounds growing in intensity). This is a new one and as we learned this weekend, gets old very fast.

Lately, Collins' communication attempts have got me thinking how fun it will be when she can talk. Not only will it be nice to not have to guess as to what she wants, but it will be fascinating to figure out what's going through that head of hers.

But it will be awhile before she is talking, and as the sounds and wild gestures increase, I'm a little scared of what our communication is going to look like in the interim. Things could get ugly. My Mom warned me there is a reason why they are so cute between the ages of one and two and that's because this is the difficult stage where they know what they want but can't tell you yet. Oh dear...I feel like we might have arrived.