w00t w00t booyah

On the speaking issue: My eldest daughter, American mutt, really didn't speak at all before she was two. She would mostly pull at my clothes and then point at whatever she wanted. I really was getting a bit worried because I knew she was quite intelligent because of what she wanted me to tell her about--the ants crawling in and out of a hole in the sidewalk--she had a great questioning look she used!

Then her sister was born when Princess #1 was two years old. Princess #2 was about three months old when we went to visit a friend and her kids for lunch--a fairly frequent visit, usually we took turns fixing lunch. When the cooking got to the good smelling stage, Princess #1 came into the kitchen with her blankie, stood in the door, and said, "Are we having hamburger for lunch today?" Both my friend and I just goggled at her for a minute before telling her yes, we were. Would she like hers as soon as it was done? She tucked her thumb in her mouth and nodded, then went back to the other kids to finish what she had been doing! We decided that she had not had anything she considered important enough to say before!

My twin grandsons, now eight, spoke twinspeak as soon as they figured out how to make noises--other than crying or grunting. They were also almost three years old before speaking discernible English! By then they were in daycare and pretty much had to speak English in order to be understood by the others there. Riley still does most of the talking, and Casey puts in the bits that get left out. Sometimes they switch roles on us. They also are American mutts.

By the way, I don't know how you may feel about harness and leashes for small kids. I highly recommend them for under four or five. I used harness and leash on all three of my kids because they would get interested in something or other wherever we went. I did not have to keep yanking on their arms to keep them with me and possibly dislocating their shoulder, and I did not have to worry about their getting lost and then frightened because Mommy was lost. I know there are different kinds of harnesses and/or leashes now so there's better choices then fifty years ago. The only thing, if you use one on Xander, be prepared for someone to come up and give you a bad time for treating your child like a dog on a leash. I used to rebut their diatribes by saying that I loved my child enough to ensure that she would not get lost and frightened. And the girls themselves never objected. They knew if they found something really interesting, I would stop and we would discuss it, at least briefly then, and probably more later.

YMMV

It sounds as if Xander is doing very well very quickly. He is one very lucky little boy!

Grammom June