• This might be one of your longest sentences: “I wish the Uncle Daniel and the Uncle Josh were here.”
• You have started saying things that we have said (only days after we first said it) like: When you were feeding Sabra her dog food, you said, “It’s good to share, Momma.”  And when you were playing with something I told you days before that you shouldn’t play with, you said, “It’s dangerous for little girls.”
• Lately, you’ve been taking 1+ hour(s) to fall asleep some nights.  You just lie in bed talking and talking and talking.  Here’s one thing you said that made us laugh, “Abby is trying to get out of the crib.”  Also, after GramB’s birthday party, you yelled in a demonic voice, “Happy Birthday GramB . . .” about 100 times.
• Can count to 10 every time perfectly (which is in the video).  We’re working on 20 now.
• You’re getting so much better with your colors.  You always know orange, yellow, red, and green.  You normally call blue “black.”
• You have conversations with yourself.  You’ll says things like, “I’m going to the living room.  Wanna come?  Oooooookay.” or “This polar bear is white.  That’s right, Sissah (what she calls Sabra).”  or “Abi wants to get the box; I can’t a reach it.  Oh, Abi help.”
• We still love to hear you pray every night.  Here’s part of your prayer from last night, “Dear God, Thank you for the two doors over there.  One, two, three . . . Yeah.  That’s right!”
• You’ve memorized several of your books, like “The Monster at the End of the Book”, “Brown Bear” “Jamberry”, and “Safari Animals.”

Here’s her video below (If you’re reading in RSS, you’ll probably have to go to the site to see the video.  If you don’t have facebook, and you want to see the video, let me know.).

Go here to take the “Is it a Boy or a Girl?” poll.

Sorry I’ve been going through a blogging drought lately :(  But good news for today: Sonia gave me an idea about what to write.  Here was her comment to this post:

i watched abigail’s video a while back when you posted her talking.  she is very advanced.  is there anything that you are doing that you would recommend to help other parents?  is she around other children alot or just you?  i am happy to see how your little one is progressing.  she speaks better than some 2 1/2 year olds.  she is still the cutest!!!  take care and i will read your blog for futher entries.

Thanks Sonia!  I’ll try to recommend some things that might help other parents.  And no, she’s not really around other children a lot– in that she does not go to a daycare or preschool.  I stay home with her.  But she does have bible class on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights with toddlers her age.  And maybe about once-twice a month, we have a play date, but she’s the oldest of the group.

Now, let me first say that she is my first and only child, so who knows if our next child will be to the same level as she.  And I’m not a speech therapist, doctor, or anything like that.  With that said, I do feel like we did some things to help Abigail get off to a great start with speech.

1. When she was a newborn, I read to her constantly.  Every single time we nursed for the first 4 months or so (after that, she got distracted), I would read aloud whatever I was reading at the time, normally a BabyTalk magazine.
2. Also from the time we brought her home from the hospital, I talked to her as if she were blind.  I’d hold her and say, “I’m walking to the white refrigerator.  I’m opening the door.  I’m taking out Orange Juice.  I’m closing the door.  Now, I’m going to sit down . . .”  I literally narrated everything I did.
3. Even if we were just sitting around and not being active, I talked and talked and sang and sang to her.
4. She didn’t/doesn’t use a pacifier.  So, when she wanted to communicate, she could with words because she didn’t have something blocking her mouth.
5. We never babbled to her with baby talk (as in using poor grammar, not real words, only sounds.  But I did use a sing songy voice and try to be animated with my facial expressions) OR repeated her when she made sounds, rather than words.  If she said, “buh buh” for ball, we wouldn’t say, “Yeah, here’s your ‘buh buh’”, we’d say, “Okay, here is your BALLLLLL.”
6. We praised her like crazy when she’d say a word– even if it didn’t sound much like the actual word.  We’d yell over the top and clap, “Yea Abigail.  You said ‘please’.  Good for you.  You’re so very smart.  Can you say ‘please’ again?!”  We did this instead of getting sad/frustrated when she didn’t say words.  We learned by training our dog that positive reinforcement works best when training a new skill.
7. I made her communicate with words in order to get “rewards”- like getting down or getting a snack or a toy.  When she would point or whine or gurggle (she never really grunted) for something, I ignored her.  I told her she had to say, “please, up, down, or out” to get what she wanted.  And I didn’t give her what she wanted until she did this.  She learned really quickly that she had to articulate what she wanted.
8. We taught her a few signs, like “more, milk, all done”.  We also learned this from teaching our dog tricks that signs help reinforce words.
9. I respond every time she says anything, to reaffirm that what she is saying means something.  I’ll say, “yes, tell me more, okay, that’s good,” etc.  Every time.
10. Whenever she starts to cry, I say, “What do you want?  Can you tell me with words? I’ll help you if you can tell me with words.”

Here is a video of her saying our favorite 3 words:

Does anyone else have any tips or questions?