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just wanted a bit of a boast really, so I appologise!!!!

soph is 2 years old. just. she has a vocabulary of well over 80 words and it's growing fast. she doesn't use baby babbling any more, and if she doesn't know a word she will ask me and then will have a go if she's in the right mood.
she's also using 2-3 word sentances like "look at that" or "what's that?"

every morning she reminds me to brush her teeth. she can't quite get the "br" sound out buyt she's getting there. she insists on waving goodbye to her poos... in fact she's insisting on waving goodbye to anything she knows the words for!!

the cutest I have heard yet was "baby lost! oh no! where baby? don't know!" that was this morning when she'd lost one of her toy elephants. he was hiding by the fish tank. honestly, I swear those naughty elephants get places on their own. they get told off a lot too and unfortunately I can hear my voice when she is telling them off

she also reminds me to feed the fish. "fish hungry. eats. mummy!!!! fish eats."

until recently she had her own word for dirty. "show-sha", it was synonymous with chocolate too... until yesterday. daddy did some intensive training and now she says "diiiiiirtyyy" (trying to demonstrate her drawn out pronunciation )

she can name many body parts, and also associates things going on with other stuff if she doesn't know the word- for instance she wrinkles her nose and says "eugh yuck nose!!" if something smells.

I am so proud of her, she's at the point now where she can tell me what's wrong and I can solve problems for her.

also, we watch words and pictures together and she likes sounding out the phonics. watch this space lol!!!

Well done there.

It's amazing how they sometimes construct words for things they don't know the name of out of words they do know. Shows reflexive thinking and problem solving.

You've probably already done this, so I may be directing this to other people. Join your toddler up to the library. Libraries today offer a wide variety of services for very young children often including:
* a humungeous range of picture and board books
* no charges if books get damaged by under 5's
* no fines for under 5's
* borrowing limits of up to 20 books
* group story and rhymetimes
* other group activities
* dual language books
* access to the Bookstart scheme which gives you free books

Do bear in mind though services vary accross different authorities but the more they're used (based on issuing figures) the more money they get to buy new stock.

In the mean time I might start waving goodbye to my poos

our local library is a lovely place and soph's already well known as the toddler who screams "oh wow books!" when she gets through the door it also has a song and dance club on a tuesday but most of the kids at that are much younger than her.

bookstart is great, we should be getting her age 2 free book on mon 25th when we go to a local surestart 2nd birthday party for all the 2 year olds registered at our local clinic.

we make dedicated time for stories every afternoon at about the same time, and she gets at least one story at bed time too if she's not too tired.

I love library time!!

mrsflibble wrote: soph is 2 years old. just. she has a vocabulary of well over 80 words

Our youngest (20 months) so far has one clearly recognisable word, this being "shoe" for when she thinks it is time for us go outside and harass the livestock. She may be saying "poules" when pointing at the chickens, as her sisters claim but frankly I ha' ma doots.

Her grandmothers are a little pururbed by her lack of vocabulary, but I can't get too worried myself. She'll have a lifetime of talking so I figure it is quite sensible of her to work out what she is going to say in detail first. Would that I thought before speaking a little more often

That's great!!!

My wee boy is much older and will be 5 at the end of April. As he was born with a cleft lip and palate I worried that he might struggle with speech etc and so we used baby sign language right from the beginning. Great fun.

I needn't have worried though - he NEVER stops talking. I will never forget the time last year when daddy was going to parents' evening (he teaches) and he put on his double breasted jacket. I thought it was a bit ott but J piped up with "I think you look very distinguished Daddy" - he's a star.

To add to Shirlz's tale - little J once asked me (he was still only 3 then): Auntie Ina, can you say distinguished?

As you can see, it's his favourite word! Had us in stitches!

The Riff-Raff Element wrote: Her grandmothers are a little pururbed by her lack of vocabulary, but I can't get too worried myself. She'll have a lifetime of talking so I figure it is quite sensible of her to work out what she is going to say in detail first. Would that I thought before speaking a little more often

It is quite normal for kids exposed to more than one language to take a little longer - makes sense really, but when they get it, they get it and they are natural bilinguists.

DD at 16 months has the usual - mama, dada, baba etc But aside from that she finds that "that" and "hola" get her along just fine And I just know that once she starts talking proper, she won´t stop! She´ll be running rings round me and telling me off for bad Spanish!

don't be worried if there is a lack of vocabulary anywhere, until they are 3 the nhs over here doesn't see it as a poblem so I'm inclined to go with them.

E is never quiet these days... she knows loads of words, (hundreds probably - I havn't counted) but she only pronounces the first syllable... so many words sound the same, I don't know how common that is, but I am perfectly happy with it... she is a great communicator. We also use baby sign language, some of the signs are great, and have helped her to 'talk' to us much earlier than she would have otherwise.
She also copies us when we talk French - which isn't very often - but she likes to join in. We are far from being bilingual but decided to raise her with at least a knowledge of other languages.

As for books, we frequently spend the whole day reading books... and if I am busy, E toddles off to the corner and sits and reads it herself... with actions and exagerated sounds... she loves it. We go days without getting any toys out of the basket... but it is her choice, and she is very happy with her hundreds of books.
We have a 3 mile walk to the library so I'll wait until Summer before I do the trip regularly again, it has been a while since we have been.

What clever little people they are!

Ellis says very little coherently....never says Mummy or Daddy, but then comes out with 'Who IS this?' when I give him the phone! At the moment is word-du-jour is 'birdie'. Oh yes, he does spot said birdie; but suddenly everything else is a'birdie' too....the cooker, the table, the door, my nose!!

I used to worry about it, I've given up worrying now - it's making me grey. He's 22 months, and the older children in toddler group are hardly streets ahead of him. But his understanding is excellent, he can understand quite complex questions and things such as 'under, over, behind, on top' as well as his colours (if I say 'which one is the red crayon? What else is red?' for example) - he just doesn't speak much! Well, not speech we can understand very easily.

This week he has mostly been Makka Pakka, and has happily gone around the garden gathering up the stones and erm...stacking them up where his Daddy can trip over them... He's obviously FAR to busy being useful to be bothered with this 'speech' marlarky!

Beth was relatively slow with her speech until she hit two and then in the last couple of months her vocabulary has changed unrecogniseably and like the others mentioned here she can hold conversations, put together full sentences and 'read' herself stories..they are amazing aren't they? She cracks me up with some of the stuff she says...today the cockeral was crowing and she ran over to his water bowl and said 'don't worry cockeral Bethy get you more water' and then when that didn't help (as he already had water anyway and was just crowing randomly) she said 'oh, cockeral stop being so stroppy!'

ds1 rarely spoke until he was about 2 1/2. He did communicate, but I didn't help as I "read" him very well. I was starting to worry a little, but then Christmas last year someone gave him a Thomas the Tank Engine video (it may even have been me) then BANG he was telling us what all the trains were called, their numbers, their colours, and then we wanted to go to Pizza Express, so I picked up a reduced price Thomas annual, WHAMMO suddenly books were interesting (we had NEVER been able to get him to sit and look at a book!) So although I find it infuriating at times, Thomas really brought our little dude out of himself. He knew it all aswell - just was waiting for something interesting to talk about!

The Riff-Raff Element wrote:

mrsflibble wrote: soph is 2 years old. just. she has a vocabulary of well over 80 words

Our youngest (20 months) so far has one clearly recognisable word, this being "shoe" for when she thinks it is time for us go outside and harass the livestock. She may be saying "poules" when pointing at the chickens, as her sisters claim but frankly I ha' ma doots.

Her grandmothers are a little pururbed by her lack of vocabulary, but I can't get too worried myself. She'll have a lifetime of talking so I figure it is quite sensible of her to work out what she is going to say in detail first. Would that I thought before speaking a little more often

Hey Hey! We got "papa" today. "Maman" would have been a better choice particularly as her mother was feeding her at the time, but she pointed and went Papa, so that's word number three, since she is definately saying "poules" and "shoes". Poor kid is so confused.

And we've got 'Oh No!!'. Doesn't use it in any particular context, though. We think he's picked it up from 'Oh No! It's the Ninky Nonk' (In The Night Garden for you telly-free bunch....)....

Soph says "oh no" when neighbours starts 'cos my hubby takes the mick out of it constantly.
also whenever she hears music with sinister sounding chords.