Natalie's speech

Lately Natalie has become quite the talkative 2-year-old. For a while now, she has understood us when we've given her instructions, for example. We can tell her to throw something in the trash or recycling, and she has understood the difference and acted accordingly. But now she is doing a lot of imitating of words and sentences and telling us a lot of thing on her own. Some examples:

• "Daddy, the baby is sleeping." - when she has put her doll to bed in the living room
• This morning she sat at the table with us at breakfast and went back and forth between me and Sarah saying, "Read it" while holding up cards from a deck of go-fish cards with an aquatic theme.
• "I have pockets!" she has declared after putting on a certain top in the morning.
• When we're in the car at a stoplight, she'll ask, "Why stop?" or say, "Stop."
• Also when we're in the car and Sarah or I sing to a song on the radio, she'll tell us, "No sing. Listen, Daddy/Mommy."

This means her vocabulary has taken a huge leap. We still often have trouble understanding her, however. Here are a few of her latest words and phrases:

Vos                  (get) dressed

I can (can’t) do it myself

Sasi                  Lexi

Pants

Hat                  Hat/helmet

Tha’one           That one 

For the last several days, she has been quite chatty almost constantly. 

Many times a day, when she is with either Sarah or me, she asks, "Mommy/Daddy, what doing?" We answer her, and often she'll ask again a few times. Or we'll tell her what we're doing (flossing our teeth, eating dinner, washing our hands) and then ask what she's doing, but she doesn't respond.

We're so impressed by her recent gains in speaking abilities, and it's great to have a new level of interaction and understanding with her.