It's such a shame that there isn't an awareness that babies will be trying SO HARD to communicate and if you work hard you can often figure it out.
I’m convicted by your post, which in my hindsight, I believe reflects your great insight. Despite her great general ability to articulate, one incident with my eldest sticks out in my memory. Sometime before she was two, I gave her a pair of chopsticks. She delightedly grabbed them and yelled out ‘grums!!’. I told her they were chopsticks but she kept saying ‘grums!’ and started getting frustrated (very rare for her as she was always a delightfully behaved infant). Finally, she started demonstrating the drumming action and the penny dropped for me ‘Oh, drumsticks!’
With my son, I have to admit that I was not a very attentive parent. I worked throughout their childhoods and in my spare time was ferrying my eldest between extracurricular activities. My best friend, who often cared for him, said that the one phrase she always understood was ‘bi bo mi’ for ‘big bottle of milk’ because he would accompany this request with broad gestures of widespread arms followed by hand positions holding a bottle of milk. I feel both proud and sad that as a toddler he had to resort to miming to communicate. His frustrations at getting others to understand him may have led him to be slightly contemptuous of others (including adults) for a few years, but he has turned out to be close to ideal as a teenager. Perhaps our posts might help younger parents to avoid this particular pitfall.
