Speech Delay

Charlie has SO much to say!  He babbles all the time, at the playground, in the stroller, in the house, over the phone to his Nana, over Skype to his Gram and Papa...all the time. If only I could crack the code and figure out what he's trying to say!  It's making me crazy. He knows what he's saying, I can tell by the way he looks at us and his intonations. We just don't speak his language. He has several actual words, but even those don't get used consistently. For instance, he knows Mama, but when he wants my attention, he doesn't call me by name. He's more likely to yell or run over and grab me or something than to say my name. And if I say, "Who am I?" or "What's my name?", he won't say it. It's hard to figure out what's holding him back. But he understands everything. Tonight I was asking him which of his blocks was red, which was blue, which was orange, etc - and he picked up all the right ones, 100%, first time. When I ask him to throw something away, he does it. When I ask him to put things back, he does it (this is a real miracle - he's finally starting to pick up a little!). We can talk to him about what we're going to do, where we're going to go, etc, and he gets it. But he can't tell us what he wants (beyond the signs he knows) or how he feels. I see these little kids at the park that are speaking in full sentences to their parents, and I want so badly to be able to converse with Charlie. I'm feeling frustrated - he's moving so much better and has conquered so many of the physical obstacles, and now I want the speech stuff to catch up! But it's just another item on our list of to-dos, things we have to keep working on. We've talked to his teacher about getting him speech therapy at school, and we have an appointment at Children's Hospital in December, to have him evaluated by a speech pathologist for ongoing care. Hopefully that will help a lot. I know one of these days he's going to start talking in full sentences - I just wish he'd hurry up!