Language Delays

Taking the kids to see their pediatrician is getting to be more and more difficult because they hate it, one look at poor Dr. Henry and they start crying/screaming like they're being physically tortured. They both cling to me for dear life and generally don't stop panicking until they pick out their "Reach out and Read" books and stickers to take home. We were there last month for their 2 year physicals, the appointments were on their actual birthday. Marshmallows are growing like weeds. Eirin is in the 99th percentile for height and 90th for weight, Liam is 90th for height and weight too. To think they were both just over 6 pounds at birth....amazing. When looking at their growth charts at their 15 or 18 month visit, their pediatrician called them the Baby Giants.
During the visit, Doctor asked me to estimate the number of words each kid has. I really hadn't been keeping count....they can both say Mama, Papa, Dodi, Hi, Bye, Agua, Choos (for juice). The Doctor then asked, would you say they know 30 words? Um...NO! At this point I was internally freaking out...thirty, did he say 30? Should they know 30 words? They're 2, it seemed like a lot. He then asked if they were putting 2 word phrases together. Hmm, they say "Hi, Mama." Does that count? This conversation wasn't getting any better. FREAKING OUT
Anyhow, he suggested an Early Intervention evaluation for each kid. It's actually a nice program mostly funded by the state, they do in-home evaluations to determine if the child has developmental delays, it's measured on some sort of scale. If the child qualifies for services they develop an Individual Service Family Plan and provide services to the child up to age 3.
A team of 3 women came last Friday to evaluate Liam. They mostly sat and "played" with the kids and asked David and I a series of questions. Eirin's evaluation is this coming Friday. So turns out that Liam qualified for services b/c his expressive language is delayed and he'd benefit from in-home sessions with a speech therapist. We'll see how Eirin scores on the test on Friday.
I didn't realize that multiples sometimes lag in expressive language. Although their receptive skills and understanding of language are not lagging, they're not communicating verbally. I'm not really sure I understand why. David thinks it might be because they're learning 2 languages, but I don't agree. The women did explain that sometimes when another skill, such as motor skills are well developed another skill may lag. I know the kids will learn to talk eventually, but I don't want them to get too far behind because they'll forever be playing catch-up. Will report back on Eirin's evaluation.