Joel's Words

Joel is incredibly verbal. Let me clarify. He loves to use his vocal chords - but he has preferred loud nasally grunts and noises to actual words. The funny thing is that he is fully capable of saying words in a clear way (clear for a 1 1/2 year old that is). For example, a couple of months ago I tried to get him to say See-See, which is what we call Elise (how that nickname came is another blog in itself). We haven't really figured out a good spelling for that name yet. Anyway, he said it beautifully, kind of like "shee-chee". Several times I got him to say it perfectly. But within a day he was back to the grunts. I would say, "Joel, can you say See-See?". And he would just say, quite loudly by the way, something like "hrrr-hrrr", spoken through his nose though, not his mouth.

With time I have learned what his grunts mean. For example, he says, "anna, anna" all the time. We came to learn this was his way of saying, "I want." Lately we have been working on the word please. He knows the sign for please, but he also knows how to say it. Instead of actually saying it though, he prefers to say, "hee", again, spoken through his nose. We decided it was time for him to actually start saying it all the time though. So for the last few days I have not been meeting his requests until he clearly articulates, to the best of his ability, the word please. And now, we finally have a little boy who can clearly say please! It is so exciting! Every day he is starting to speak more and more clearly, and he can even make some full sentences. I have to say though, I think when he has fully outgrown his nasally grunts and noises, I will miss them!

(original post 11-08)