The Language of Jack

Dear Jack,

You are growing and changing so much these days. Your desire to communicate is so strong and you are trying to master new words all of the time. You have also become a proficient pointer and are able to make us understand things like "please read me this book" quite well with your body language and facial expressions, even if it takes a minute or two.

Today, for example, you did say something with a "buh" sound that may have been book. When that didn't work, you picked up the book. When that didn't work, you brought the book to your dad and then looked at him expectantly. He picked you up and started to read. During the reading of the book, as you pointed to the birds we had to wonder if the "buh" from earlier was more of a "bird" word since the book is all about birds. At this point, we don't know, but you were happy with the book being read, so there's that.

I am starting to understand how miserable not being able to make us know what you want must be for you and as your frustration level is going down, so is the frequency of your fit throwing.

There are still times when you can't use nonverbal cues to get us to do what you want and you still don't have very many words, and so frustration does still happen, but less and less often.

Keep being patient with us. We're trying to learn the language of Jack as fast as we can. But I'm not sure how much we will have to learn as I think your ability to communicate will outpace our ability to make guesses and pretty soon this phase of guesswork will be over completely.

I hope so anyway.

Love,
Mom