Stubborn Talker

Not the biggest shocker, but, Ellie can be stubborn. Never more so than when it comes to spoken words. The child communicates better than some adults I know, never leaving a single question to what it is she wants or is asking for . . . the nonverbal communication skills that kid has are amazing. But she seems to have almost zero desire to speak. She uses names -- Anna, Mom, Dada, Ampa, Gam-mah, Baa (her stuffed lamb), Broo (her stuffed elephant), Woof (her stuffed dog), Nam (her stuffed kitty -- it used to be "Meow", but she got lazy and now it's just Nam), and a few more. She says 'thank you' and 'bye'. (Oh, and she just started coming up and saying "diaper poopy" to me when she needs to be changed. That was kind of a shocker.) But beyond that, she won't use many words. If she wants a drink, she'll point and mime drinking or whatever it takes for whomever she's with to ask, "Do you want a drink?", to which she enthusiastically replies, "Yeah." But, ask her to say 'drink' or 'water' (words she has said before, so we know she can), she just repeats the word 'yeah' until you give in and get her a drink. She'll have an entire room of people saying, "Come on Ellie, say 'ball' . . . say it, say 'ball' . . . ba-ba-ba-ball . . ." and she'll just stare at us curiously, walk over and grab the ball and walk out of the room. Words she said months ago have never been heard from again. She's just stubborn -- I swear there's a bit of "I'm not going to say it, just 'cause you want me to."
This is all very reminiscent of her big sister though, so I'm not worried about some of her 'delayed' verbal skills. Annie stubbornly refused to talk much up 'til about 20 months, then it suddenly exploded. From 21-24 months there were literally dozens of new words every single week. And I ended up with a two year old who spoke in complete sentences, using words like 'actually' and 'practically' and 'probably'.
So, I'm really excited for the next several months of Ellie's development. I can't wait to hear what she has to say!

Edited to add: Fitting with both this post and the last, Ellie said her first sentence today! She had been very fussy all morning, (she doesn't seem to be feeling well, even going down for a nap before 9:30AM) and was crying in my lap, when I asked, "Ellie, do you want to nurse or do you want a drink of water?" "I want to nurse," Ellie replied pretty clearly. I was shocked. It was almost kind of ironic to have that be her first sentence after writing these last two posts! :-)