Translations

There are things your kids say when they're younger that you sometimes forget. So I'm going to record a few of the most prevalent.

Ahee - Horse
Mickey - Music
Moo - Milk
Ga Ga - Uncle Greg
Pee - Symphony
Kee - Kris
Boo - Broke
Elelelele - Elephant
Tech-te-ga - Peek-a-boo
and lastly...Too - Shoe

To Speech or not to Speech

Okay if you know me at all, you know that I have a three year old that still needs Speech Therapy. But I have to question, as I watch her, does she NEED speech? She has so many clear words, which is no where near where she "should be" for an almost three year old. On the other hand, she makes herself very clear. She gets across what she's wanting to get across very well. So it begs to ask the question, when she turns three, and ages out of the states system, should I continue Speech Therapy if it's available to her, or should I just say no, it's not needed? If you put her and another kid her age in the room, and you can understand my daughter over the kid that has the bigger vocabulary, is she really behind? But then is that a fair assumption? Was it just that one particular kid that couldn't make himself clear enough to understand even though he had the bigger vocabulary?

Because technically by the age of three, she should have three hundred clear words. From the age between two and three, she should go from around fifty clear words, to three hundred. So is she behind because she doesn't have three hundred clear words? I don't know! She works every day and even her Speech Therapist says she's doing great as far as updating her vocab and articulating down to the syllable, so does it constitute taking the extra resources? There are a lot of kids out there that are in worse shape than she is. So at what point do I stop taking advantage of state resources? When does she get to a point that she doesn't need Speech? I leave it to you parents out there. Does she need to continue? Or should we let her just age out? What do ya'll think?

Blue Moment

So the other night, I was having a blue moment, and it was just me and Chance, and she is playing when all of a sudden she goes "Mommy! What's wrong?" and I'm like "Nothing's wrong baby. But thank you." and she comes over, gives me a hug, says "I love you mommy, here." and puts her puppy in my lap to make me feel better.

Brought a tear to my eye. She's such a sweet heart. And has a big heart to boot. She's very emotionally developed. LoL! Anyway, just thought I'd share.

First Conversation

Well Chance, we had our first intelligible conversation tonight and you used words I didn't even know you knew and in the right context. It was great! I'd told you no, and you didn't listen. So then you threw a fit because I told you no again. So then it was the dramatic throw yourself in the floor type of fit. So then you want to play with your blocks. So you bring me the case. And here's where the conversation starts.

Me: Calm down first.
You: I'm done.
Me: You're done what?
You: Done crying. (Still crying)
Me: Then stop crying.
You: I can't.
Me: Yes you can.
You: (Takes a deep cry breath, lets it out) Okay.

This is so cool! I had to tell about it. :)

Update on Learning

Major changes, major funs and major irritations are afoot! Yes that's right. My daughter has passed her terrible twos and jumped right into the troublesome three's, four months early! I love her dearly and lord knows I'd lay down in front of a bus for her, but sometimes I'm ready to hang her by her toes in the top of the nearest trees. LoL! She is the typical two year old.

We've upped her speech therapy to two times a week as she still doesn't have many clear words, and even though she is talking more and actually making small sentences like "Come on Puppy." or "I love you too Daddy.", the words aren't clear to anyone who was around that hasn't listened to her. Most of her words are garbled or just her own language all together. And as much as I hate to admit it, potty training is spotty. She's so defiant and her own little person sometimes and it's impossible to fight something that doesn't budge. LoL! I'm sure I'll find a way around this, I usually do, but man, sometimes it doesn't feel that way.

She's still growing. She's 24 lbs now. She's still tiny though. Some of her outfits that she fits in still are still 6-9 month clothes. LoL! She's my tiny terror! LMAO! Damn proud of the little fart though. She is smart. The other day she was changing her puppies "diaper" and she opened it up and was like "Eew eew eew! Oh my gosh, puppy!" and shook her head. I absolutely rolled and so did her daddy. She's had a mean streak as of late, which yes, I know. I've heard it all. It's a developmental characteristic and though it's irritating and a major frustration, it's completely normal and a good thing. Argh! LoL! I've been to the pull my hair out point a few times in the last few weeks. And I'm positive that I'm going to look back on this one day and laugh myself to stitches about this, but goodness...it ain't today. LoL!

She's doing good though! Eating isn't as much of a fight, though it is a slight one from time to time, and her teacher has dropped to coming twice a month for now since we've upped speech and it's good and bad at the same time. LoL! I've been very blessed with a great person of contact all the way around from her social worker with the state, to her teacher/occupational therapist to her speech therapist. She ages out when she turns three but then she can have an opportunity to continue with the local school system, should we choose.

I think one of her biggest issues right now is lack of social interaction. It's one of those suck worthy situations. Only one car seriously hinders the opportunity to get her out of the house and around other kids. So many things have made me stick to my thoughts of home schooling. The other day, on the news, an elementary school was on lock down because a first grader brought a gun to school. Really? A six year old child, had a gun in his backpack?

And recently she's discovered fear. She's suddenly scared of the vacuum cleaner, a thunder storm, the lawn mower, or anything loud. She's also just like me in the sense that she's very sensitive to sad parts in movies or sad songs. And she wont even know what she's crying about but she just bawls. And it's so hard not to laugh when she does it. Mainly because she has no clue what she's even crying for. I talked to my mom about it and low and behold, my daughter and I are a mirror image of me and my mom. LoL! I'm in so much trouble!

Well that's all for my book for now. I will bid you all a fond farewell until next time! Holla!

Home

Well we're back home from our vacation as of Sunday. I'm so sad, and little girl has just been by my side since we got home. Even now, she's sitting beside me on the couch, playing with her dolly. It was a very productive vacation and she learned a lot. Score one more for Grampa for getting her to eat meat with ketchup. Dunno what it is about Grampa but he manages to get her to do things that no one else can, no matter how many times they try. Like last night, she ate a hotdog, for the first time, because of the ketchup. LoL!

We went to Sea World too! That was a lot of fun but I think she was still just a little too young to appreciate what she was seeing. It was really neat at the Shamu show, before it started, they asked for all service members, past and present to stand up with their families. It was really cool that my daddy was able to stand up and be shown on the jumbo screen, brought tears to my eyes, and still does even now when I think about it. I was a little disappointed that the trainers weren't allowed in the tanks with the whales any more, but I understand why. I don't like it, but I get it. It takes some of the magic away to me.

Now that we're home, she's talking a lot more, and I have not been able to keep her off the potty tonight. I've made more trips up stairs to get her a treat for peeing in the potty in the last hour, than I have since we started. Which is good, I don't want to discourage her from using the potty, but holy crap. LoL! Anyway, we're home now. Getting back into the groove of things as it were, and it's taking time, but she seems in a lot better mood and it was definitely good for me! So, until later...Holla!!!

Baptized on Easter Sunday

We're down visiting the parents and my dad asks us last weekend how we felt about getting Chance dedicated, or baptized. I was all for it and daddy just needed a little reassurance that it wasn't something that would prevent her from being able to do it for herself when she was ready. So we called the preacher, met with him in his office before church this morning and this Easter Sunday, little girl was promised to God.

Dad said it was important to him that it be done and he'd be honoured if we would have it done here. So after a long conversation with the husband, we decided to go ahead. She did great this morning. We went up and the pastor prayed over us then asked three questions. Would God accept the dedication (Well duh, LoL!), would the congregation help us as parents with the raising of her in a Christian home, and would we as the parents, promise to raise her in a Christian home. Of course the answer to all three questions, yes. So she was sprinkled with holy water and baptized this morning. It was so awesome.

We all cried! Me, daddy, gramma and grampa. After it was done she smiled and shook the pastors hand, and the whole congregation laughed and fell in love with her instantly. It is so cool knowing that my daughter, was baptized on Easter Sunday. I feel so good having gotten it done. I have to admit, my dads church is enough to make me uneasy. And not because of the specific branch of Christianity, because I'm used to my church at home, which is a little Church of Christ that holds probably 150 people on a busy day. My dad's church holds 2800 people on a SLOW Sunday. Talk about feeling out of place. LoL! But in the end, today was about her and Jesus/God. Not about me feeling out of place. It was a great day today and I'm so happy to know she's dedicated.