To be balanced, there are those that go in the other direction, perhaps myself included. I'm sure my kids were talking with some meaning before I gave them credit. I have always been a very hard grader.
This is me, for the most part. I remember in particular that my mother-in-law, who often took care of DD when I was at work, would tell me these wild tales of all these things DD had said...and I never believed a word of it. I had a strict rule that until she said a word clearly and in context 3 times, without hearing someone say it earlier in the conversation, I wouldn't count it as a word. I do think that sold her short a bit, but if I'd counted everything she said that sounded like a word or a sentence with meaning, I'd have seemed (and felt) insane. I still don't know whether she was just good at making a variety of sounds and combining them in a variety of ways earlier than other babies (which certainly was true) or whether she was really trying to talk. At the time I really did not believe that babies could talk, but I've come to accept that it is possible.
This said, I know a few people who exaggerated their children's speech ability and one in particular couldn't remember half of what she told people.
LOL. But this is me too. Not with the exaggeration thing, but with the memory. I just have a lousy memory. People have caught me changing my story and I just say, "Well, the way I told it first must be the truth." I
don't lie, but my memories fade rapidly.
