No talk, all action

I have been monitoring Mayenne's progress in terms of her linguistic skills. After all, studies have shown that girls tend to be stronger in that area compared to boys.

When she uttered her first proper word "Papa"at a tender age of 9 months or so, we were getting all geared up for the endless chattering and noise to come. However, that was not the case. To date, Mayenne can say less than 20 words, some of the clearer ones include Papa (no 'Mummy' yet), bye bye, nen nen (for milk), and less clear ones like 'aam' (for 'same'), 'geen' (for 'green') and 'zzzzzz' (for the letter 'Z').

She can fully understand us, but she refuses to speak when asked. May be Mummy talks too much, stifling her chances to speak. Or perhaps Mummy doesn't give her enough time to put her answer together before offering our answer. Why I say that is because sometimes when she's alone, she will babble some sounds, perhaps in an attempt to say something.

When it comes to this kind of things, you can't really rush it. I will continue to introduce her to more words and let her take her time to be ready to speak single words, then 2-syllabic phrases, then in sentences. While that may take a while, Mummy will always to here to guide Mayenne.