Babbling

Moms worry about their children.  It is no secret, but when it comes to development the emails we receive about what to expect and what our children should be doing is sometimes enough to tie you into knots.  They have a disclaimer that each child is different.  Surely this is true and we see it every day, so why do these expectations about progress keep us up at night?

For me it began recently when I realized Brenton is not babbling with consonants.  At 6 months many babies are stringing together mamamamas and dadadadas and bababas.  Baby B is 7 months and although he is verbal he is not babbling in this way. 

I spoke with my husband about my concern about his language development and since he cares for Brenton during the day he began some additional exercises to spurn his progress.  We implemented some baby sign language as well.  He loves the sign for happy baby.  After all he is one happy baby.  We speak to him directly and read to him frequently and have since birth.  Still no babbling. 

He squeals with delight and smiles and laughs in ways that melt my heart.  He also babbles with vowel sounds.  This should be enough, but in the days of increased diagnosis of autism and learning disabilities I find myself jumping to the worst case scenarios.  Just as I get myself into this dark and scary place my son will do something new.  He can stand up and hold onto the table now.

It is incredible how this unrelated task can make me feel better about his development.  Perhaps he is just putting his focus into the physical endeavors.  Regardless I have a happy baby and that should be enough. I wish I could definitively say that I will not have these moments of concern again; however, I cannot make such a bold statement and I can only claim that these mom worries come from a place of deep love for my child and a hope for a relatively easy and happy existence.   

I rest assured that I take joy in his milestones that he has reached and he has surprised me with meeting some ahead of schedule.  Clearly he does things in his own time.  My husband reminds me I will one day look back and long for the days when he was unable to speak.  I laugh and think about my own mother who probably wished for that during my belligerent teen years.  

Secretly I continue to repeat over and over to my beautiful baby B….mamamamama.  It is my shameless plug to say my “name” first.  This will inevitably lead to his first word being dada, but I can live with that as long as he remains my happy baby.