waiting...

My Sean is almost 22 months old. He is (mostly) happy, healthy, affectionate and adorable. He loves to laugh. My only real complaint is that he is still not a good sleeper. I blame myself for letting him sleep in our bed until he was 18 months old. My true concern lies in his verbal ability.

He says lots of words, but I am waiting and waiting for true communication. I feel as if other toddlers his age are more advanced than him verbally and this worries me a bit. He can repeat words but they are still all single words. Like I said, I'm waiting.....Physically, he's all set: he can climb up playgyms at the park and slide down the slide himself, he plays with his toys and can run and climb like a champ.

He understands me when I talk to him; I can tell him to get his cup, and he'll walk across the room and get it. But he will not ask for his cup. Could it be because I am offering it constantly and he doesn't get the chance? His favorite words are Mama, Dada, Minyow (cat), nose, mouth, out, up, down, ball and bus. Everything on wheels is bus, including real busses he sees out the window and his toy bus. Bus bus bus....he repeats these favorite words every day. This scares me somehow, though everything else about him seems normal.

"They" always say not to rush things, as in "I can't wait until......" when it comes to children because it all comes too quickly. But there are two things regarding Sean that we can't wait for. 1) for the teething to stop - this boy does not tolerate mouth pain well and these teeth come slow and, more importantly: 2) for the day he expresses something he wants rather than pointing and saying "I"

Autism is such a scary word and it is not like this speech delay and repeating the same words alone indicate that possibility, but the "A" word looms on every parents mind, I imagine. I've been to the websites and Sean does not meet any other requirements on the autism checklist so I'm fairly confident that it is not a