In the Latest Round of "Who Will Help My Baby to Speak?"...

Bonnie and I are going to see a neurologist tomorrow.

I am so scared that my stomach flips every time I think about it.

I was somewhat relieved to hear that they will not be sticking electrodes into her brain as I feared. It will mainly be me answering the doctor's questions while he observes her.

Oh good. That has gone so well for us in this whole debacle.

I'd rather have them stick electrodes in my brain than sit through another session where I lay out her speech story and then get told that she's fine.

Don't get me wrong, I want her to be fine. (Even though the word "fine" has always made me grit my teeth in annoyance.)

Fine means talking though. And she's not. Not enough to count at least. Everyone sees that except the people who could help her get to fine.

Well-meaning folks, trying to "help", fall into two categories.

The first group is all "Oh, stop worrying. She's fine, she'll start talking and you'll wish for the days when she didn't."

Really? It's fine for a 2 year old not to talk? Did you learn that in imaginary medical school when you got your imaginary medical degree? Would you think it was fine if she was YOUR 2 year old or would you suddenly understand why her jabber makes me so anxious? And as for wishing that she'd stop talking once she starts, that's unlikely. I do wish YOU would stop talking though, dumbass.

Then there is the concerned group who point out her delays like maybe I didn't notice because I was too busy playing a wicked round of Angry Birds or something. "I don't want to alarm you but Bonnie sounds like a very young 1 year old. You should really push for her to get speech therapy before it's too late. The earlier the intervention, the better, you know."

Thanks for not alarming me. Also, thanks for making me feel like a lousy parent by implying that I'm not doing my best to help her get what she needs.

As always, it comes back to me. Remember, the most recent speech evaluation resulted in a diagnosis of me "overloving" her as the main reason she doesn't talk. Boy, that Jack and Natalie are lucky that I didn't give a crap about them, aren't they? I obviously underloved them since they don't stop talking from daybreak to dusk. Just yesterday, Jack was telling me about a "monotonous" worksheet he had to endure at school and Natalie was requesting some "exquisite accessories." Yep, just goes to show, I didn't love those kids at all when they talk like that.

Has Bonnie's speech improved in the month since her last evaluation?

No.

But it has changed. Within the last week, I've noticed that her babble has even more inflection and her gesturing is more confident, more pronounced. Instead of mimicking Natalie's speech patterns, she has made them her own. The only difference is that Natalie speaks English while Bonnie speaks...Bonglish?

The other change is that she has gone from sad to angry when we can't understand her. Bonnie used to look so crestfallen when she'd tell me something and I wouldn't respond the way she expected. Now she gets mad when she asks for what she wants but doesn't get because I couldn't understand her babble. There have been quite a few kicking, screaming meltdowns in the last week. We're both left sweaty and exhausted when she finally winds down. It breaks my heart when the screaming stops and she lays her face in the crook of my neck, taking solace in me even though I couldn't fulfill her need.

What I wouldn't give to find out what is wrong with my sweet girl.

"Wrong"...that implies that something is deficient or defective about Bonnie and nothing could be further from the truth. If she never speaks a clear word in her life, she'll remain nothing short of perfect in my eyes. I want the speech to come for her sake because I can't imagine how isolated she must feel, not being able to tell us what she needs from us.

She does have a few new "words" that I've decoded recently:

Go -- Thank You as well as the normal meaning of the word

Hoodoo -- Horse

Wootoo -- Water

Peeku -- Pink

Beebee -- how she refers to herself

Gee-you-nom -- Grammy

Add that to Hi, Mama, Da, kiki (candy), Na, Guy (Jack), Oh-mo (Elmo) and Bahbee and you pretty much have all of Bon's discernible words. You can see why it's so hard to know what she wants and why she is spending so much time in a state of frustration, poor little love.

So what do I want from tomorrow (other than that the neurologist looks like Patrick Dempsey as Dr. Derek Shepherd?) I don't know.

Lord knows that I don't want to find out that there is something actually "wrong" with her. (Apraxia and Dysphagia are unlikely possibilities our pediatrician mentioned at her 2 year well-baby check-up. I've been trying not to Google them ever since because I know I'll have a stroke if I read anything too scary.)

I mean, even without the speech progression one would expect to see in a child her age, Bonnie's intelligence is obvious. She can follow directions, get a joke, process a conversation that she hears me having on the phone. She can mimic and play pretend, do puzzles, act out a story as I read it. Anyone who has seen her tear across the lawn or throw a ball knows her physical abilities are intact. Could she have neurological issues unrelated to intelligence or motor skills? I don't know. God, I hope not.

Basically, I want this doctor to tell me she's fine and I want him to do it in a way that makes me believe it. I don't want to get the implication that she's "fine" because there is no money to help her actually become "fine" like I felt with the county speech team. I want him to say she's going to be okay and I want to believe him.

I also want him to give me the date of when she'll start speaking English.

Hey, I can dream can't I?