Have the cats got Olly’s tongue?

Our little Ollsy turns 18 months tomorrow, already… how amazing that the times flies so quickly! It seems that the hours are excruciatingly long but the weeks fly by: I’m very conscious of trying not to wish this time away as I realise how precious it is but I think it’s automatic conditioning to want to get to the next stage with your babies, whether it be solid food, walking, potty training or talking…

Talking of talking, or not talking as the case may be – I’ve been so enjoying Olly’s silence up til now that I haven’t even thought about his ‘next stage’… Ava, bless her darling heart, is a whirlwind of noise and motion and the two days a week she is at school have been our little oasis in a desert of maelstrom. It’s only in the last week I’ve thought about Olly talking and realised that he really should have been saying a few words by now, especially as his little buddy William has been galloping ahead in the verbal stakes!

So off we went to the audiology clinic at the Children’s Hospital and we had a fun half hour testing Olly’s aural reflexes, to be told his hearing is within the normal range and perhaps he has fluid behind the eardrums and to check it out with the doctor. Or perhaps our wee man is just a tiny bit lazy?! Why bother making the effort for all those separate words when a “uhh?!” will do for absolutely everything?

Let’s see what the next month brings – walking didn’t happen until he was almost 16 months, and at the moment he probably doesn’t feel the need to compete with the cacophony: Ava, the radio, the iPod, me shouting etc. Maybe this weekend we’ll turn it all off and see what happens…