Speech

(I know what you're thinking...so many posts!  You once a week checkin' in people have some serious catching up to do! :)  Remember, you're privileged to read a blog filled with exceptional education, gripping entertainment, AND delightful surprises! It about makes you want to walk around with your underwear handing out of your pants doesn't it?...I know....  Me too!)

Andrei's vocabulary has really taken off the last few weeks.  He's now calling me "Momma."  He calls Kennedi "Momma" too.  She doesn't correct him which irks me a bit.  I've been waiting for a long time for him to call me something besides "Daddy" and I don't want to share!  He's learning his animals.  He won't say the name of the animal, but he says their sounds.  I've always found that to be so funny with babies.  My girls would say the sounds the animals makes long before they named their names. 

He loves to read.  He always has.  We tend to read the same books around here time and time and time again.  I understand it is good for the little one's development of vocabulary.  We read the same thing over and over until I can't stand it any more, and then we move on to something else.  Right now we're on Good Night Moon.  It was a fav of my girls, and Andrei likes it too.  The girls loved looking for the little mouse when they got a bit older. I was concerned this winter about having the fireplace going with Andrei.  Doug lit it once, told him it was hot, and we haven't had a problem with him going near it.  For those of you not versed in Good Night Moon, it is a story about a little baby bunny who does not want to go to sleep and tells everything in his room good night.  Every other page is a duplicate picture of his room.  There is a fireplace in this picture with a roaring fire going.  So, every other page Andrei points to it and say, "Hot! Hot!"  Now he points to the Momma Bunny in the rocking chair and says, "Momma."  He points to the oatmeal looking stuff and say, "Eat! Eat!" 

Annsley had a gigantic vocabulary before she turned 2.  HUGE!  And she enunciated her words quite clearly.  Andrei's isn't nearly as clear, but he's only been listening to English for a year now.  However, compared to Kennedi, it's off the chart.  She used about 5 words only until she was 2 1/2.  I'm not kidding. He's WAY ahead of where she was.  She didn't want to talk.  I would try to get her to say a word.  She'd just smile.  I couldn't have bought a vowel if I had the money.  I can remember being so frustrated with her.  She didn't even try. When she was 15 months, we had her hearing checked to rule out that was the talking problem.  Hearing was OK.  It was her "wanna" that was in neutral. We had her tested at 3 for speech.  Her poor daddy just knew that she was fine and wouldn't need services.  I was thinking, "Are you serious??"  Of course she qualified--like in the bottom 3% qualified.  She W-A-A-A-Y qualified.  But she's a talking machine now.  Literally.  She will talk your ear off.  She has so much to say about everything.  And to everyone.  She knows not a stranger.   Not a single one.  She gets that from her father.  Has to.  It's not from me. 

You know the teenagers who stayed on the phone for hours and hours?  That wasn't me.  I hated talking on the phone.  I used the phone for a purpose.  Got my information and hung up.  I think I'm better now, but I am not one of these people who can talk to the same person every day.  My life isn't that exciting.  The closest I have ever come to having a daily phone conversation with the same person was when Annsley born and my sister was home with her son.  That was just to keep my from going out of my flippin' mind back then.  It was self preservation--not a social need.  I remember when school started back that year, and I wasn't teaching for the first time in 14 years.  I was sitting on the couch waiting for Annsley to wake up from her morning nap and watching Magnum PI reruns on tv and thinking, "This is what my life is going to be like from now on???!!!"

Now I wish I had a day like that.  (sigh)

We also had our post placement #2 visit recently.  It was such a blessing to talk to our social worker with respect to Andrei being a normal toddler.  With the exception of a few things, you'd never know that he came from an institution. He's a blossoming little guy! We are so blessed!