kira speak

Yesterday, the kids were playing in the backyard. Jackson came inside, so I went outside to get Kira. I told her that she needed to come in because it was getting too hot. She wrapped her arms around herself, started shivering, and said, "ooooh....COLD!!".

Saying it doesn't make it so, babe. Get in the house!

kira speak

some cute vocab I don't want to forget:

"oo turn, Mommy!" - your turn, Mommy. I LOVE this.

"uh oo" - Love you. At first, she said this in answer to us saying "I love you." Now, she'll tell us out of the blue. I'm so thankful.

empty - amazing how many ways she uses "empty" to get her meaning across.

"puler" - computer.

"rah-rahtz" - which is Yo Gabba Gabba. I think it has something to do with "robot". Anyway, rah-rahtz is her fave.

minnow - we have the book Would you rather be a bullfrog? and one of the questions is "Would you rather be a minnow or a whale?". One day, Kira shouted out, "MINNOW!" and it cracked us up. She loved the reaction, apparently, because she now likes to randomly shout it out. She also really likes to add it on when Jackson asks her to say something. Like, "Kira, say Daddy" - "MINNOW DADDY!" She thinks she's huh-larious.

"dat" "dere" "dis" - that, there, this. She uses these to drive me batshit crazy. Great that she knows them. Not so great when I have no idea what she's talking about.

"beh-dy?" - ready? She asks me this right before she does something that she thinks is awesome, like jumping, or dancing, or singing.

"morning!" - she says this about 152 times as she greets everyone walking down the hall to her classroom.

"doh-durt" - yogurt. Absolutely her favorite food.

"duh-ders" - crackers. Sounds almost exactly like doh-durt. She knows the sign for cracker, though, so that's how we figure it out.

And a story:
We were leaving the Dr's office when I realized that I locked my keys in the car. We had to call Derek to come rescue us (how he got to spend his lunch break on his birthday). So, Jackson, Kira, and I were waiting in the Dr's waiting room.

Kira: Mommy. rah-ratz puler? (Mommy, can we watch Yo Gabba Gabba on the computer?)
Me: No, baby. There's no computer here.
Kira (pointing to the TV): dere?
Me: No, baby. I'm sorry. We can't watch it there.
She thought for a sec and then her eyes lit up and she said: Mommy! Come on. Car. Home. Rah-rahtz puler.

Cracked me up! She was like, "I've totally got this figured out. We don't have to sit here. We can just get in the car, go home, and watch it there. Silly Mommy."

I don't know if I'd call her vocabulary approximations or not. I have to translate most of what she says, but sounds are getting clearer. Like "bed-dy" for ready was "belly" until very recently. She'll be having tubes put in and her tonsils (and maybe adenoids) removed soon, so it will be interesting to see how all of that plays into her language/speech. We still use lots of sign language, and she constantly has me asking her teacher what this or that new sign she's using is.

Sometimes she'll really surprise me with how she's able to communicate her thought processes to me, like with the Yo Gabba Gabba puler story.

The other day, I was getting her a drink while I was holding her. I put the lid on the cup and said, "Now what do we need?" and she said, "Straw." I need to remember to ask things like that more often. To give her the chance to show me what she knows.

I'm also starting to get little bits of communication that show me that she understands past/present/future. The other day, Jackson was off for a day of fun with his Beeka. I treated Kira and I to pizza for lunch. When Derek got home that evening, I said, "Daddy, Kira and I went to lunch today." and she said "Pizza" without any prompting. That was very cool. Jackson and I were able to talk about his day, etc, so very early. It's one of the things that I'm so ready for with Kira. We're getting there.

kira speak

Kira seems to be in a new language development period. A few quotes from yesterday:

- I was blogging and she came in the room and said "oll-uh". I knew she was approximating a word and not just giving me a dispatch-from-Kira, but for the life of me, I could not figure it out. Until I followed her into the living room and saw that she was trying to open up her STROLLER for her baby doll. Duh, Mom.

-Last night we were watching Dancing with the Stars (go Kelly!) and she looked up and did the sign for phone, said "i-tuh" which I think is "I talk", and said "Papaw". We said, "Kira, do you want us to call Papaw?" and she said, "NO!".

Then about fifteen minutes later, she did the sign for phone, said "i-tuh Nene". We said, "Kira, do you want to call Nene?" and she said, "es". We of course had to let Papaw know that she had no interest in talking to him.

-Monday nights are "boys night" while I watch DwtS. Boys night = hot dogs and fritos. So, last night, Kira introduced her newest word, "ot dog".

Oh, and I remember one from last week that I wanted to get down. Derek was off and I was taking a shower and getting ready to go somewhere about the time he usually leaves for work. I came out of the shower and Kira looked at me and said, "Mommy? Work?". She was totally making the connection between the getting ready and the time of day and transferring that from her Daddy to me! Of course, I had to say, "No baby, Mommy is always at work." (She doesn't say work that clearly, but I'm not sure how to write her approximation. She says it along with the sign for work and it's pretty close to the actual word.)

I know that sign language can be a hot button issue with our kids. Some parents feel that using sign language might hold their kids back from speech development. I can see that point, however in our case, sign language is a huge help. When Kira has a sign to go along with an approximation, I know right away what she's saying. Once she begins actually saying the word, the sign disappears. I think, for Kira, sign language helps to reduce frustration and encourage communication.

One more story - Kira made up her own sign to use when she wanted me to sing lullabies to her. Very quickly, she started saying "bye-bye" and using the sign with it. So, I knew that "bye-bye" was temporarily "night-night". Now she's saying "nye-nye" (no idea how to write that) and because I know right away that she's saying night-night, she doesn't use the sign. Now, she only uses that sign when she wants me to sing lullabies.

While I would love for her to have the vocabulary of her brother at this age, I LOVE the fact that she uses her limited vocabulary in the ways that she does. Watching her problem solve and figure out how to communicate is really amazing.

31 for 21

Blogging every day is hard!

I mean I could blather on every day about something, I'm sure, but I'm having a hard time putting together meaningful posts about Down syndrome.

It's partly because I feel like I've said a lot of it before, but mostly, I think it's because we're just living life. Down syndrome is a part of our life, some days a bigger part, most days just part of it.

The other day at the zoo, while Kira and I were waiting for the gates to open and having a snack, a little girl and her mom sat down on the bench near us. The little girl was probably close to 3 and had a continuous running monologue: I'm climbing up on this bench I have a tissue I'm wiping my face we're going into the zoo we're going to see the monkeys I'm climbing down off of this bench... and then Kira broke into my conscious with: Eat Mommy...bites...moh

I had this weird moment of almost feeling jealous of the little girl's speech. All of those prepositions and contractions tumbling out of her mouth. It's not that I caught myself or corrected my thinking, but more like at almost the exact same moment I thought, "That's not how KIRA is supposed to talk right now. That's how that little girl talks. She's not Kira." Kira wanted some more to eat and she let me know.

She lets me know when she's not happy. She tells me when she is. She takes her limited, though growing, vocabulary of words, approximations, and signs and she makes it work. She works it to get what she wants, believe me. She works it to tell jokes and make us laugh, on purpose. She works it to let us know when her brother is being a selfish jerk, in her opinion.

And do you know what all of that is? That's smart. Or as Kira would say along with the sign, "mah".

kira speak

Derek, Kira, and I were checking out the Justin boots outlet in Ft Worth this morning. I think Kira might need some cowgirl boots. She walked down the display shelf like this:

"oooooh pih-ee boots! (takes a step over) oooooooh pih-ee boots! (takes a step over) oooooooh pih-ee boots!..."

And then she and I practiced walking tippy-toe while we waited for Daddy.

(ST and PT show up in the strangest places!)

Happy Down syndrome Awareness Month!!

October is Down syndrome Awareness Month and in honor of my girl and all of her amazing peeps, I'm taking part in 31 for 21 - 31 days of posting to bring awareness to individuals and families living with Trisomy 21.

I wasn't blogging last year, so I'll finally get to post about Kira's first year and what that was like for our family. I'm looking forward to sharing how much one little bonus chromosome has meant to us.

So, for today, I thought I'd share a smidge of what mothering an almost three year old with Down syndrome looked like this morning:

• 3,147 rounds of "row, row, row your boat"
• 1 trip to the zoo, that included:
• saying "hi", waving to, and completely delighting about 20 different strangers
• asking the elephant if he was having "bites"
• splashing and playing in countless puddles
• begging her brother "peeeaaaasseee" to wear his new necklace and then saying, "Dee Buh-buh tuh-weet" (Thank you, Buh buh, you're sweet) when he let her wear it.
• 1 conversation with another mother (Hey M.E.!) re: my nervousness about our upcoming testing for the transition from ECI (birth to three) to PPCD (three to five)
• 1 just-because-she-felt-like-working-herself-into-an-I-feel-sorry-for-myself fit (lest anyone remains under the impression that T21 = 24/7 happy. It doesn't. For real.)
• reading a book about colors together and not being surprised at all when she named "puh-ple" right away. No question, it's her favorite color.
• listening to her "bead a book" to her babies right now when she's supposed to be napping

Not much different than mothering a typical almost three year old, huh? And yet, T21 does touch our lives constantly. I could delve further at this point, but I have to save something for the next thirty days!

And stealing this idea from Lisa, at Bridget's Light, if anyone has any questions about Kira, her development, our family, please leave a comment and I'll try my best to answer. And thank you, Tricia, for hosting 31 for 21 again this year, I am honored to get to participate!

brush your teeth little lion

Last week, I heard Kira messing around in the bathroom. Here's what I found:

She's telling me to "top Mommy."

Lots of teeth brushing going on around here. Largely inspired by the "Brush your teeth, little lion" song from Jojo's Circus. Kira's teeth, her baby's teeth, buh-buh's teeth - dang sparkly teeth around here, let me tell you.

"Teeth, Mommy...brush Mommy...Baby? Baby? teeth?...Mommy, baby teeth"

(And yes, those are winter jammies "customized" for summertime.)

Big week

So much has happened this week, it's hard to know where to start. Today, we welcomed Jackson and Kira's brand new baby cousin. I'm not sure if his parents want his name all over the blogosphere, so we'll just call him "Bandit" - Jackson's suggestion for his name when he was still in utero.

He's beautiful and very courteously arrived on a day that worked out nicely for everyone. Kira was FASCINATED with him. She sat and looked at him forever and even shoved Jackson out of the way when he tried to get a look. She was saying, "Baby! Baby!" Then she started cataloguing him for everyone, "Baby hat. Baby eyes. Toes" - she'd look up at us every other word to make sure that we were noticing that yes, the baby did have a hat, eyes, and toes. Then she asked Bandit, "Baby? Eat? Bites?" and "Baby bath?" - I think she wanted to make sure that he had everything he needed. When the nurse came to check his blood sugar, she started pointing out all of his assets to her, too. I hope that they end up the best of buds and give the big kids a run for their money.

Other big news this week - Jackson is reading! Really reading. He's been pointing words out to me forever, but I assumed that he was sight reading. We were at the library Tuesday night and I saw a set of Bob Books. I told Jackson that we could check them out and start working on reading, if he wanted to. He was so excited that he wanted to sit down and look at them right then. And then he read the first three books, just like that. Sounded out words, everything. There are 12 books in the set, he read 11 of them when we got home that night. Crazy. While we were waiting to go in to see the baby, he read to his grandparents and to a random gentleman also waiting. He made sure to hold the book so that Mr. Random could see it, too. That kid cracks me up.

On Thursday we went with friends to the Modern Art Museum in Ft Worth. They were hosting a kids film festival and we went to see The Velveteen Rabbit. It was a version I hadn't seen before and we all really enjoyed it. The cultural district in Ft Worth is really lovely and there is a gorgeous swath of lawn between the Kimbell and Amon Carter Museums. We had a lovely picnic and then all of the kids played in the fountain in front of the Kimbell. Very cool. I wish I would have remembered my camera. At one point, Kira was sitting on the edge of the pool, kicking her legs in the water and munching on an apple. She was so cute, just enjoying a beautiful summer day.

Also this week: Kira's first visit to the Down syndrome clinic went really well. I hit Kroger's super doubles on Saturday. And we enjoyed visits with 3 different aunts. Busy week and weekend - I think we'll have a take it easy day tomorrow.

I hope y'all had good weekends, too!

Down syndrome clinic

phew - I am worn out! We had Kira's first visit to the Down syndrome clinic today. She's seen our geneticist annually up until now.

This was our schedule:
9:15 arrive
9:30 OT consult
10:00 geneticist
10:30 PT consult
11:00 Hearing eval
11:30 Speech consult
12-1 lunch
1:00 - summary meeting with geneticist

I was so nervous. Kira has always had her therapies once a month and I feel that that is just right for her. But, I was so scared that all of these second opinions would show that maybe I should have pushed for more. I was also so worried about her hearing eval.

I had nothing to be worried about, though! All of the therapists agreed with Kira's current stable of professionals. The PT recommended having her fit for shoe inserts (not the full ankle kind) - more for later development. Her current PT has been on the fence about it. The PT also agreed that at 3 we should get her involved in 1 or 2 community based programs, like tumbling, soccer, or dance. Kira walked up and down the stairs for her and showed off her "blast-off" skills. Jackson was with us and left the PT room saying, "I LOVE the Down syndrome clinic!"

The OT was impressed with her skills and gave me some more ideas on increasing her hand strength. She suggested letting her push golf tees into styrofoam. She also said we could start working with a small pair of tongs - to get started on the motions needed for using scissors.

The Speech path wants us to work on the "guh" and "kuh" sounds - and was really happy with Kira's language development. Interesting factoid - she said that at Kira's age (almost 3) 10% of the child's vocabulary should be verbs. I didn't know that - I need to think through Kira's words and see if she's there.

Kira's current therapists feel that there is a chance that she might not qualify for PPCD (our 3-5 program). She may not be "delayed enough." The therapists at the clinic agreed and offered me lots of suggestions for what we can do if she's not in PPCD. Her geneticist suggested letting her stay up all night, the night before the assessment. ;)

The geneticist also said that if she does qualify for PPCD, she thinks we should do a few months in the program and then transition her into a typical pre-k. I'm not sure what our options are with the school district, so I've got some work to do.

AND Kira totally passed her hearing test!! No fluid in her ears! I was so happy.

Good day all around and I'm so thankful to have access to such great resources. And now I'm going to bed.

kira speak

Some new phrases I wanted to jot down.

We were watching baby videos and I clicked on another page. Kira said: "Moh...moh...Baby ight back." (More. More. Baby right back.) She just started saying "ight back" a few days ago, so I was really excited to hear her incorporate it like that.

Today she said, "Daddy...read pease...moh read...Daddy?"

Yesterday, Ted (our cat) was in the kitchen. Kira thought he wanted to go out, so she moved the trash can out of the way and said, "Ted out? out? Ted?" He didn't move, so she walked away shaking her head and saying, "No out." It's the first time she's used negation like that. Pretty cool.

brown dogs, pink dogs, silly dogs...just dogs

Derek was watching old videos with the kids last night and I had to share this one. Jackson is 2 1/2 in this and Kira is 8 months. For about 6 months, anytime Derek pulled out the camera, Jackson would launch into his "I want dogs" conversation. He had been awake maybe 5 minutes here. Even though I obviously lived this, it still blows my mind to hear how he talked at 2 1/2.

Kira has a couple of cameos and I wish I could just scoop her tiny self out of the video and into my arms!

Please ignore the tired mama. Kira was still waking up 3-4 times a night at this point. It's kind of dark, so I hope you can see it!

Still here

I can't believe I haven't posted since Wednesday. Not much interesting to report, so here's how our week went.

Monday - bopped around the house
Tuesday - Library story time - speech therapy - lovely visit with my dad
Wednesday - took the kids to see Kung Fu Panda in the morning (free movie series) and had a visit with their Aunt Beeka in the evening.
Thursday - stormy day that kept us inside - had to cancel plans with Kam & Vin (missed y'all, btw!)
Friday - play date with Michele and Grace - so much fun!
Saturday - another longer visit with Aunt Beeka - much Candyland and Chutes -n- Ladders

Speech therapy recap:
Kira's therapist thinks we're still ok with once a month - and I agree.
We're working on:

• Pronouns
• Saying her own name. (Note to self: next go-round, give all children names that only use the "b" and "d" sounds.)
• novel commands (like please go to your room and bring mommy Jackson's shoe)
• concepts of "one" vs "all"
• negation (no book, no eat, etc)
• yes & no answers to questions (She's got "no" down, believe me. She usually nods or answers "yes" questions with a noun - like answering "bites" if I ask her if she's hungry.)

Kira sees her speech path and OT once a month. She sees her PT quarterly. I'm happy with that and think she's doing really well. However, because of that, most of our visits involve basically running down checklists to see how she's progressing. I hate that part. There is always some skill or ridiculous task that I never even thought to practice. It's hard to feel like your mothering skills are being tested. And I really don't want Kira to ever feel like she's letting me down, because she SO isn't. Anyway, there's a whole post there, but I don't have the energy right now.

We're looking forward to another busy week - hope y'all have a wonderful one!

more Kira speak

beh-boh - Elmo
bih bird - Big Bird

leh-low - yellow - This one is brand spanking new. We were reading last night and she pointed to Big Bird and said, "leh-low". Jackson and I about fell over! It was awesome! Jackson started running all over their room grabbing yellow things to get her to say it again. It was partly 'cause he's such an awesome brother and partly 'cause it extended bedtime.

whe-uw - where (I couldn't figure out how to spell it phonetically - that's close. She says it and does the sign for where).

pa-puh - paper

Kira speak

Mainly for posterity, I wanted to write down what Kira is saying these days. I'd say 75% of what she says is conversational babble - dispatches from Kira we call them - lots of syllables with plenty of hand gestures and facial expressions to get her message across. 25% is actual speech.

Her communication is probably split evenly three ways words/signs/word sign combos. I'm still teaching her new signs. It's usually easier for me to figure out that she's saying new words when she does the sign along with them.

The List (at 2 1/2 years):

Mommy
Daddy
Buh-Buh or "acks" for Jackson
Poppy
Da-Da (for NaNa)
Pap or Papaw or Pappy
De-De (for NeNe)
Ted

Bat (for Cat)
Eat
Bites
Peetz (Pizza)
She says bites and does the sign for drink when she wants a drink
Pease (please)
"Day" (this is thank you)
No
"es" (Yes)
"top" (Stop)

ooooh....pih-eee (Oh Pretty!) - she says this EVERY time I put her in a dress or skirt and EVERY time I wear a dress or skirt. She's a fan of girly clothes.

box
ball
baby
"bash" (bath)
"beh ee" (belly)
bird
"bish" (fish)
bear (the "r" sound is really soft - more like bea-wuh)
bed
buh-sh (brush - for brush teeth)

up
down

done
Hi
Bye
bye-bye (She uses this exclusively for night-night. She usually hands me her baby and says "bye-bye" and does a sign the she made up. That means I'm supposed to rock the baby and sing it a lullaby.)
diddle diddle - (tickle)

uh-oh (this is a new one and makes me laugh every time)
toas (toast - also new - also funny)
wow (new - and very cute - her lips pooch way out when she says it)

"Oat - Ot - Oat" - this is what she says when she's counting. We're working on LOTS of counting right now, so hopefully I'll start hearing more number like words soon. I know that she's "counting" when she says it.

She "counts" while squatting down and then says "bat - ot" and jumps up - that's BLAST-OFF!

ide (hide)
BOO!

"moh" - more

eyes
"ose" - nose - sometimes she'll enunciate the "n"
boush (mouth)

urt (hurt)

bants (pants)

tee-tee
poo-poo
and lots of singing about both

"bos" - this is music and has been for a long time. She says it along with the sign for music.

read
books - take most of the "k" sound out, though

"bot" - dog (along with the sign)

"ut" - hug
"tiss" - kiss

"out-ide" - outside

"oh-wee" - swing - along with a sign that she made up. She also uses this when she's trying to get me to let her do outside related play stuff - like sliding or using the riding toys. She's starting to say "ide" for slide and we made up a sign - but "oh-wee" is still her go to for slide.

"i-brah" - Library - she says this when we say "Daddy is at work" or if I ask her if she's going to work. She says it along with the sign for Library.

"ite" - this is, I think, "I talk" - she consistently says this when she's reaching for the phone.
"ice" - this is, I think, "I see" - she consistently says this when you're holding something that she wants a closer look at.

"ooo-ooo-wee" along with the sign for train - she uses this for things that go - trains, cars, motorcycles.

Moo - for cow and for most animal sounds - she does have a hacking/coughing sound that's quacking.

"atch" - watch
Boo-boo - Blue from Blue's clues

ipe - wipe (baby wipe)

That's all of the individual words I can think of right now. She frequently uses two words combos of any of them and is starting to put together some three word combos.

What I really love is that she's so efficient in her word usage. I generally know what she's asking for and she rarely has problems communicating her needs. I am so thankful for that.

She also has her first joke. She likes to look up really fast and say "OH BIRD!" then look slyly out of the corner of her eyes - that's my cue to say, "Kira! There is no bird up there!" Then she laughs and does it again.

I love this kid so much. I don't even have the words.

this 'n that

Mainly just some stuff I don't want to forget.

I was tucking Jackson into bed the other night. I had my hair in a bun and he asked me take it down. I did and he said, "You look more like a Wendy like that."

His new thing is to request an appetizer before dinner, "something like goldfish crackers". He also likes to ask me for a snack and when I say, "what would you like?", he usually replies, "something that's not good for me."

Kira has started calling me "Mommy." She's been calling me Mama for quite awhile. So, now it's Mama - just day to day. Mommy when she's being sweet or sad (very staged). And sometimes, I get to hear "MOM!!!" screamed at the top of her lungs - when she wants something or when she's had all she can take of her brother.

She's really into make-believe play, lately. She was playing in Jackson's police car. She got out and came over to me and did the sign for work. I said, "Oh, are you going to work?". She nodded yes, got back in the car and said "Bye -bye!".

She rarely uses her big high chair. (She usually sits in our Ikea chair that pulls right up to the table.) I have the high chair set really low, because she likes to climb into it. She put her baby into it the other day and started saying, "bites? bites!". So, I ran and got a baby spoon and bowl from the kitchen. She fed that baby bites for 10 minutes.

On Friday, I was working in the kitchen and heard Kira singing, "row, row, row." I looked over the edge of the bar and she had her new bunny, a duck, and her baby all lined up. She would sing and then clap and shout "YAY!!" and then hug them all. It also sounded like she was trying to say "good job" which is what I always say to her.

She has also mastered the art of "please." She LOVES Blue's clues. We don't have cable, so we check "bloo bloo" out from the library. The other morning she wanted to "atch bloo bloo." I didn't know that Derek had taken the dvd back to the library. So, first she says "atch bloo bloo." I go to check the spot, no bloo bloo. "I'm sorry, baby. I don't have Blue." Then she points to the spot on the shelf where it SHOULD be - "atch bloo bloo atch bloo bloo". "Baby, I don't have it." Then she just throws her head back, "P-e-e-e-e-e-ase!"

Luckily it was a storytime day, so we headed straight for the dvd shelf at the Library. I handed her the dvd and she said, "Ah bloo bloo!". Crisis averted.

Kira is also now saying, "NO." And she means it, believe me.

Jackson just blew through all of his milestones so quickly. It is so much fun to watch Kira's skills develop, especially her language skills. Jackson went from babbling to complete sentences in 2.5 seconds. Actually getting to appreciate each little unfolding piece of a new skill is such a blessing.

And finally, some pics just because. (Super windy day at the park a couple of weeks ago)

Sara's Feeding and Speech Thoughts

Sara Rosenfeld Johnson, SLP now has a blog. Her first post is on sippy cups. It looks like she'll be taking questions from parents, so I'm definitely adding this to my blog roll. Thought y'all might want to check it out.

speech revisited - this one's for Megan

Megan, mom to the lovely Audrey and adorable Stella, asked for more info on this post. So, I'll try to answer her questions and provide some more detailed info.

Her questions:

What exact age did you start speech?
And how did you teach the straw/cup?

Starting speech:
We had an evaluation with our speech path when Kira was 2 months old. Kira and I had a rough start to breastfeeding. I wanted a speech path to make sure that Kira's latching on looked ok. (I didn't want Kira to have to "re-learn" how to hold her mouth, etc.) When I called ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) to set things up initially, I requested the eval. Luckily, Patricia (our speech pathologist) was able to make room for Kira pretty quickly. We started seeing her regularly less than two months later. I don't know how soon speech services would have begun if I hadn't made that initial request.

Using a straw:
We started our son using a straw really, crazy early - like around 2-3 months. Sucking a straw is very similar to breastfeeding. My mom is a l&d nurse and suggested starting it early - using expressed breast milk in a cup. He was able to do it immediately. I hadn't even thought of doing it with Kira (so many other things on my mind at that time), until Patricia suggested it. Kira was right at 5 months, I think.

To get Kira started, I first put the straw in a cup of breast milk and held my finger over the end of it to create a vacuum. Then I put the straw in Kira's mouth and let the milk dribble in. We did that a few times, so she'd get the idea. Then I put the straw in the milk and let her try. I honestly can't remember how long it took her to figure it out, but I'm thinking she caught on that first day.

ETA - just thought of this - when we started we cut the straws really short (like about 1/3 of the straw), so that Kira wouldn't have to work too hard to get the reward of the drink. She didn't use a full size straw until a few months later.

Using a cup:
Kira's first few speech therapy visits were all about drinking and eating. Initially, we supported Kira's jaw when she drank from the cup. I'm sorry, but I can't remember exactly how Patricia had us do that. I think I held my thumb and pointer finger in a "U" shape and supported Kira just under her jaw - you'd want to double check that with a pro, though. We helped with the jaw support until Kira regularly drank without letting liquid dribble back out.

We also made sure that the cup rested on Kira's lip, not on her tongue. If she stuck her tongue out in anticipation for the cup - I'd wait until she had retracted it before I let her drink.

Using a spoon:
I'm thankful that we had Patricia around when we started Kira on solids. I know 5 months is early to start, but Kira was practically yanking food out of our mouths at that point. When you start spoon-feeding a baby, you usually do that whole scoopy spoon movement - where you put the spoon in and then lift it up, sliding it against their lip as you pull it out. Patricia told us not to do that (and man was that hard to re-learn after feeding Jackson).

Patricia had us put the spoon straight into Kira's mouth - like perpendicular to her mouth. Then Kira would do the work to get the food off of the spoon. Patricia also recommended not using the spoon to wipe food off of Kira's face (you know when you scrape, scrape, scrape then feed that whole extra spoonful to your kid). She wanted to make sure that Kira knew exactly what her mouth was supposed to do when presented with a spoon.

Speech up to about 12 months:
So, until Kira was about 1, speech therapy was mainly about eating and mouth exercises. Patricia had us do a "palate swipe" - kind of a massage for Kira's palate. The purpose of it was to help Kira's palate come down a little in her mouth, so that her speech would sound more typical later on. If you have "regular" muscle tone, when your mouth is relaxed your tongue kind of sticks to your palate and slightly pulls on it. Babies with low tone, however, will typically have their tongues resting at the bottom of their mouths.

We also did an exercise where we would put our pinkie finger where Kira's jawbones meet and let her bite, bite, bite. This was to help with strength and mouth posture (I think).

There may have been a couple of others - I'll go back through Kira's paperwork (if I can find it) and check.

Speech after 12 months:
Once Kira started regularly babbling and saying a few words, we started the sound card system. I think it's something that the group our therapist works with started. More info here.

The sound card system uses pictures and signs to cue sounds. Each of the 21 initial consonant sounds has a name, picture, and a sign/visual cue. We used the cards for several months. Now, we just use the cues.

So, for example, the "h" sound (like in "hello") - the name of the sound is "tired dog", the picture is of a dog, and the cue is holding your hand in front of your mouth like you're feeling the air coming out as you make the sound.

If Kira is trying to say a word and I want to isolate the sound, I use the cue while saying the initial (or ending) sound. I usually repeat the sound, word, and cue a couple of times. Then, I'll use the actual sign for whatever word I'm saying.

For example, the word dog. I'd say "d" (use cue) - "d" (use cue) - "dog" (then pat my leg - the sign we use for dog).

For us, speech therapy was initially about prepping Kira's mouth for speech. Now, we've moved on to actually producing speech. I'll post more later about the sounds she's mastered, what we're working on, and so on.

I'm happy to answer any questions, so y'all feel free to ask!

ECI coordinator report

I love how Cate posts her daughter's ECI reports. It really helps me to think about other things to do with Kira. Plus, what a great way to keep up with the records. I wish I had been doing this all along.

Kira saw her Service Coordinator today. Here's the report:

What's New/Progress: Kira is starting to imitate words on request. She is saying many single words along with a sign.

Goals/Outcomes: overall developmental progress

Routines (summary, observation, assessment, plan): Kira said "eat bites" and "read books". She is starting to work on putting her pants on. Putting on her brother's pants today. She said "bye birds" after looking at birds outside.

Recommendations: Continue to encourage 2 word spoken phrases - her language progress is wonderful. See Help at Home sheets for new ideas.

Visited with mom about recent family activities.

I did not have high hopes for today's visit when it started. Kira sat on the couch all sulled up (is that just a Texas expression?). I have never seen that look on her face. Wendy (her coordinator) would try to initiate play by handing Kira things. Kira stacked each thing up away from Wendy, as far as she could get away from her. I swear she was hiding her books and toys so that Wendy wouldn't touch them.

Amazingly she cheered up - the rest of the visit was wonderful! She is just starting to speak around other people. Until now, she would only talk to Derek, Jackson, and I. She would NEVER repeat things when I asked her to, around anybody else. Well, today, she was a little showgirl. I about fell out of my chair when she repeated "bye birds." She's never said those two words together, and she has never repeated something a non-family member said.

She's been trying to put pants on recently. She can get one leg in. Well today, she got a pair of brother's shorts and sat right down and put both legs in. She was on our ottoman, so I stood her up and she reached down and pulled up the front of the shorts. Little toot was showing off!

Wendy gave us a stack of activity sheet type things that discuss the various developmental milestones she'll be tested on when she turns 3. I'm excited to go through them. I'll post anything that looks interesting.

Talkers

We had speech therapy yesterday. Kira sees her speech pathologist about once a month. She's been seeing Patricia since she was about 2 months old. Both of my kids are big time communicators. Jackson had a 100 word spoken vocabulary at 1. Kira had a 100 word vocabulary (spoken + sign) by 2. I think she's getting close to 150 words now - she's 2 and a quarter.

We're working on more two word combos, more spoken language, adjectives and pronouns. I think our girl is pretty amazing. When we see other families with kiddos who have Ds, they want to know who our speech path is, what we've done, etc.

Here are the things I think we're doing to help:

• I breastfed her until she was 25 months - I think this was great exercise for her mouth. I didn't think it would be possible the first couple of weeks she was here - it was a hard fought victory (more on that later).
• We did start speech therapy early. For the first 6 months of therapy, we did lots of mouth exercises, stretches, etc. Since then, our therapy has been mainly maintenance - since we only see Patricia once a month.
• We have never used a sippy cup. Kira started using regular straws and drinking from a cup at around 5-6 months.
• Sign language. We used sign language with Jackson, too. I'm so thankful that we did. It was one less thing to have to be intimidated by, when our world was rocked by Kira's diagnosis.
• We read constantly.
• I never shut up.

Having said all of that, I also think that Kira's plain old everyday chromosomes set her up to be a communicator. Jackson was speaking in complete, completely understandable sentences by 18 months. By 18 months he referred to the clock on the oven as the "hot clock". Brownies were "candy bread" and my mom's dressing was "chicken cake". He has a way with words. Kira's therapist calls him "hyper-verbal." He turned two right as we were beginning all of Kira's therapies, so I actually have professionals who witnessed him at that age! I think Kira's development pretty much mirrors Jackson's - just with the addition of her extra genetic material.

oops...she's up from her nap. more later