Her vocabulary is limited, which is part of the problem. Her commands, questions, and exclamations all involve pointing and a grunt or whine. If I don't follow her request, the whine becomes a squeal, the grunt an angry bark. I bought one of those 'teach your baby sign-language' books but got as far as "all done" and "more." I guess I just assumed that the words would come before the connection between hand gesture and noun.
C has a few words down: mama, dada, ball, more, na-na (for bananas), bowl, all done, and bye bye. She can get "Nally" out for our cat, Natalieportman, but has no exclamation for her grandparents or day care buddies.
When her temper reaches its boiling point, she lets out an angry, disbelieving cough as if I could dare deny her a trip down the basement stares or another viewing of the "Gangnam Style" video on the iPad. The cough becomes a slow, windup whereupon she unleashes a fury that can only come from the frustrated and misunderstood.
"What do you want?" I ask, but to no avail. She points and stomps, sometimes at the very thing she has been denied. I keep calm, knowing that my reaction will only fuel her reaction. After a few minutes of screams and tears, she settles back down, distracted by a block tower or her plastic grocery cart. I've become a master of distraction when it comes to the toddler meltdown. Sometimes she gets what she wants; other times, she is able to get over her disappointment after a few minutes of wailing.
She's storing all these words in her head; I know she is. Right now it feels like she'll never be able to tell me what she wants, but I know one day the dam will break and she will unleash verbiage on her father and me that will make us wonder what life was like before she could talk.
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