yep, that sounds about right

The green sentences below came from Sharon's blog; she's talking about her 2-year-old.

If you replace "crying and yelling" with "gesturing and apologizing," this PERFECTLY describes my Japanese.

Each word was work and we worked awhile for her to get them down. When something came along and it was a word she knew, she used it and everyone cheered and then we went back to communicating with crying and yelling.