Julia has totally been talking up a storm the last week. As we like to say, "the floodgates have opened".
She's not quite 23 months old and we can essentially have a conversation with her now. Believe it or not, she is stringing 4-5 major words together at one time. She says things like "love you Dada" and "bye-bye Dada's truck me fries milk" for when she wants me to take her to McDonald's. She knows odd words like "snow" and "doggie go outside stinkies towel water" for when the dog goes outside and it's wet we have to dry off his paws with the towel before he runs around the house. The best one is "Jesus loves me" while patting her chest.
The point is, she's been a lot of fun lately since we can now talk a little. I realize that girls develop earlier then boys but this a bit early (or so it seems). From the moment she was born we could tell (and were told) how alert she seemed. I think she's like me in that she's really aware of her surroundings. That is, she's known what's been going on for awhile even if she hasn't been saying it. But I also think that having a stay at home mom, breastfeeding for over a year, watching limited TV, having the right kind of toys (i.e. not ones that blink and make noise all the time), listening to music, as well as us trying to really talk to her or repeat a word she says has helped a lot too.
This video has a short section at the beginning where she repeatedly says her own name. It's not the greatest example of her talking, but it's the most recent we have on film. I mean, do many 23 month-old toddlers know their name? Maybe. I don't really know. All I know is that we pretty much can talk all the basics to her now and she knows what we're saying and is repeating a lot of it on her own.