being heard.

Mama. Dada. Baba. Caca.

That was our lunchtime conversation today, at least on your side. As usual, I filled in all the details in between, asking lots of questions and exclaiming over your silly faces as you worked to get each word out.

Mama. Dada. Baba. Caca.

That's the extent of your 20-month-old vocabulary, my darling girl, if you leave out your strange array of animal noises and long, babbly strings of nonsense all starting with the letter D. Four words to describe the world around you. It's amazing to me how well you are able to communicate with us through these 8 little syllables - how you categorize everything in the world under these four headings. (Man in the grocery store checkout? Dada. Talking about your grandma? Caca, because she has to drive in one to get here. Picture of three cows? Mama, Dada, Baba.) Your wild gesturing, long list of baby signs (many invented by you), and ability to find pictures in your books to describe what your voice cannot helps us to know just what you mean, most of the time. The way you wiggle back and forth when we say "I love you" because it's the only way you know how to say "I love you, too."

But it hurts my heart sometimes, knowing that you have so much locked up there in your little brain that you can't quite get out. I see how quick you are to notice things, because you're such a good little observer, and how easily you make connections to what you already know. How much I dread when you drag out the Bird Songs book because I know how angry you get when you point at a picture of a Roseate Spoonbill or a Pine Grosbeak or a Ruffed Grouse and the bird call that plays on the tiny little speaker isn't for the bird you've chosen. How determined you were to find an old pacifier with a picture of a fairy on it because the magic wand we made together reminded you of her. How you pick up every detail of my longwinded directions about cleaning up for lunch and manage to follow them in your sweet little way. How much I want to cry when you stand next to other children and wave and wave at them with such earnest excitement, hoping they will see you and respond, because you don't know how to say hello.

Mama. Dada. Baba. Caca.

And I have teethmarks in my tongue for all the times I've had to bite it when well-meaning friends and strangers give us advice about you: "Lots of kids talk late, there's nothing to worry about." "You need to speak more slowly and enunciate more so she understands you better - then she'd be able to talk just fine." "You probably just don't understand what she's telling you yet - you really have to listen more carefully to understand toddler-speak." "Don't you think she's too young for speech therapy? That therapist is probably overeager for clients."

And you are young. And there's still time. And maybe you will outgrow it. But then again, maybe you won't. And we have tried so many things to help you. And what's effortless for lots of kids just isn't for you, and we just don't know why yet.

Mama. Dada. Baba. Caca.

My biggest worry? That you'll give up. That trying to communicate will become so frustrating to you that you'll decide it's just easier to let other people do the talking. That you'll retreat inside so we stop saying "Use your words" and "Say it with your mouth, please" and "You say. You say."

Because what I want, more than anything, is for you to know that you are heard.

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