Emmie's Speech Progress

It's been a great weekend and we ended it with fellowship at our church Home Group this evening. The kids (except Emmie) are tucked into bed and she is on the way. We have been snapping some photos of Emmie and enjoying some one-on-one time with her. She is fascinated with eyes and often wants to look into your eyes and examine them. Tonight she was practically sticking her finger onto my eyeball, touching my lashes and giggling. It felt very strange but I patiently let her explore.

It also brought to mind all the cute things she says now....so I thought I would share some of them with you....

I see...or I see it (especially when looking at photos that have just been taken...she is demanding to see)
Come-on (when she wants you to follow her)
Be right back (with her finger pointed out at you)
Just a minute (again with the finger pointed..she can be a bossy little thang)
I love you (that one just melts our hearts)
I help you (she is a great little helper)
Help me please or help me do it (she has good manners)
Clean up (she learned that quickly and actually does clean up well and with a great attitude)
bye, see ya (while waving at you)
Like that (Emmie tacks it onto things she tells you constantly)
Ready..Set..Go (this is one of the first strung-together statements she used and is SO cute)

Other words used frequently are: sorry, hungry, milk, eat, clean-up, thank you, me, mama, daddy, all of our other kids' names, uh-oh, night night, NO, wait, hi, hello, bye bye, etc. It is great to hear her using more short sentences too.

When we were having her speech evaluated this past week, Judy (the speech therapist, asked if she knew at least 50 words. We are SURE that she does. She babbles quite a bit, getting the number of syllables for words correct, even if we are not understanding her. SHE knows what she is saying!

There are some sounds she is still unable to make at this point, even with her palate repaired and closed up. She just hasn't learned yet. We are praying that God will totally heal her palate and more surgery will be unnecessary in order for her to have better speech. She has come a LONG way from not knowing any English (and from having a big hole in the roof of her mouth)...and we are SO proud of her. She is almost always willing to repeat words and sounds and a good attitude like that goes a long way toward better speech. Great job, little Emmie!!