My special girl.

This week we were lucky to have a lovely and delightful house guest and her daughter staying with us for a few days.  Her daughter is four months older than Hazel.  Her daughter not only speaks in complete sentences but can count, knows her alphabet and is fully potty trained.  So we were oogling over how smart she was at the lunch table the other day when she and her mother headed off to the potty.  We continued to oogle at her intelligence while she was in the bathroom when our conversation was interrupted by my intervening in Hazel retrieving herself a snack from the trash can.  "Hazel! We do  not eat garbage."  Then not thirty seconds later she came wandering in with a brown paper sack on her head.  I laugh, knowing full well that she is a smart girl.  She is certainly up to par in all other areas of development...cognitive, gross motor, fine motor, social, etc.  However, her speech is at about an 8 month level.  When she was 8 or 9 months old she would babble the appropriate consonants, mama, dada, baba, lala but she has since stopped.  She makes noise, she babbles, she is progressing along some other verbal milestones with intonation and whatnot, but still is not forming words the way she should.  She had issues with eating when she was born and continues to be picky with "how" she eats things.  I am not overly concerned because as a mother of four children I also know that they all develop at their own rate.  Haley, though capable of telling us what she wanted, did not start really speaking until she was nearly 3.  Abby was pretty average and then we had Mia who was saying "Shamu, cheeseburger" and "fo shizzle" at 18 months.  Hazel knows about 10-12 signs but only uses about 3 or 4 unprompted.
And while it's obvious that as the youngest of four girls, an outgoing Dad and one chatty Mother she doesn't get a lot of speaking opportunities. I have my suspicion that there may be more to her delay.  I'm no expert but I have had my fair share of parenting (at least four times in 9 years), fair share of talking (obvious to anyone who knows me or has ever sat in a room with me for 3 minutes) and working with small children with developmental delays (almost all my time at college....no, I actually worked for the school districts early intervention program, I wasn't referring to my fellow college students.) A few months ago at her 18 month well baby check up he said to bring her in in January if she still had no words.  We did a complete work up with the audiologist and she did wonderfully so no worries there.  I didn't take her back in January.  I decided to be the patient Mom just waiting for her when she is ready.  She has her two year well baby check up in a couple of weeks and I am anxious to hear what her pediatrician thinks.
So in the meantime I will continue to follow her to her chair as she giggles in anticipation of reading, we will cuddle and love and encourage the words, but I can't promise I won't sneak a chuckle next time she sticks her finger clear up her nostril when we ask her where her nose is.  Besides, she managed to purchase a game package on my cell phone for $4.99 this week, how delayed can she be?

Oh, that crinkly nosed smile...I could eat her, every last bit.

 Her new swim suit...she loves it so.  She kept twirling and playing with the skirt when I put it on her.

 Sometimes she does funny things like stands like this while she is waiting for something.  She is just cute like that. (And sometimes no matter what I do, I cannot rotate a picture.)

We all remember this one, no?

Despite the fact that she accidentally pooped in the potty last week and has the whole "hold your crotch and bounce while looking longingly at me" thing down, I don't think she knows what you are supposed to do when sitting there.  Besides, I don't believe in truly potty training a child until they come up to me, rub my arm gently and say "Mother, if you don't mind, I do believe I am ready to put away the diapers and start using the restroom like a civilized person.  Thank you for all those times you lovingly cleaned my bottom but your services are no longer needed." That's when you know they are ready.   Besides, as her mother, I am totally entitled to post pictures like this on my blog.

My other favorite thing that Hazel does is this.  You know how babies do their whole "I don't know" shoulder shrug and head shaking? Instead of her intonation going up, go ahead, shrug your shoulders and say "I don't know" in an upward pitch--she says it in a downward pitch...as if to say "I don't know, what are you asking me for" while putting her chin down and to the side while casting just her eyeballs up.  It's hilarious.

I should have waited to do a post entirely dedicated to her since her birthday is right around the corner...but I think I will say only nice things about her in that one.