Speech Therapy

Katie has been working really hard on yapping the past couple of months. It’s especially helpful with more hardware, teeth! She starts out repeating words or at least parts of it when she is told to do so. In the past week or so, she’s been awesome at saying the words for really what they are.

She’ll point at pictures of Daddy or Daddy himself and says ‘Ba Ba’, Daddy in Chinese. These days she’s especially clingy to him so I hear it day and night.

And, when she wants something from us or even a stranger, she’ll go up to them and say ‘es’ for please…lol… The poor thing can’t quite get the ‘palee’ part yet but getting there. She is great at pronouncing ap-pole and ba-na-na or more often ‘na-na!’ :o)

Last furlough Friday, we went to Ikea with my mom and sister Annie. A guy walks by infront of us with a long bushy ponytail. Katie pointed at his back with a big smile on her face and said ‘wow wow’ for doggie in Chinese…lol!! Second time, she has embarrassed me in public but good thing the dude was not Chinese. Although, my sister and I probably laughed hard enough for him to notice my 1 year old was talking bad about him behind his back!

If you’ve never been around babies, young kids or know of someone who is verbally impaired, communication can be a very frustration experience. It is especially so for those of us who chat away constantly and think of it as a simple thing. When it doubt or the baby is whining out of control, move her finger to the object. Nothing works better than good o’ charades to the rescue. Works every time…lol! Ya, probably should go back to signing excerises :o)

A short blog to keep life going… We’re counting down to Katie’s first plane ride this Saturday to Washington, DC to visit friends, the pretty Fall weather on the east coast and solve all the problems on Capitol Hill…NOT!!

No Monkey!

I have to say one of the scariest things in life now is to see my daughter hurt in anyway; however, we realize it is inevitable no matter how hard we try to keep her away from danger or keep our environments safe. Knock on wood, the inevitable has not happened yet. In the meantime, she consistently surprises us at her height and level of intelligence with her abilities to find loop holes in our safeguards. There are times when we over complicate things and do more than we have to to protect her. And, there are times we undermine her abilities and she end up with a scratch. No matter, our first line of defense is to teach her safe ways.

Katie digging through our finances...

Last week while at my parent’s house, Katie took her afternoon nap. When she woke up, she quietly got off the bed (about 3 feet high) somehow without breaking any bones. She turned on the television and stood watching it as Grandma was lured into the room by the unexpected noise (from the TV). My sister said, what a crazy little girl…lol…

Our first ever CA State Fair visit with Yogi's bro and wifey, and now our kids :o)

Katie likes to play on the bed, sofa, and stairways at my parent’s house. We’ve tried teaching her how to get off safely on her own but recently, she seems to notice everybody else just walking off these things and so she tries to do it too. We’re forced to catch her many times in mid-air. So to help her practice her dismount routines, we've decided to put her bedframe back together and raise her mattress off the ground. Yogi reassembled the frame last Friday on his day off. Believe it or not, she literally walked off the bed the first couple times she was on it. The bed is only a foot high so no major injuries. She landed on her butt without even a squint to show on her anxious little face. She hops up onto her two little feet and continues on her way. It took a few practices to have her get off our way...turn on her tummy, steer her legs down the side of the bed, and push herself off.

Hanging out on Grandma's front yard.

Surprisingly, the very next day she figured out how to climb ONTO her bed with no assistance. I have to say the good thing about this is, when she gets really really really really tired, she goes to her room, climb into bed, grab her blanky and tries to nap on her own. But, she has not actually fallen asleep on her own. Somehow, she realizes nobody is around to watch her sleep (like usual) and so she would leave her room to find us. The second time I saw her climb onto her bed, she started jumping on it! And when cousin Tyrus is over, there’s no doubt we have two monkeys and a big circus. Now, how are we going to teach her to jump safely and stay on the bed?!...lol...

Spending furlough tomorrow taking Katie to her one year doc visit in the morning with SHOTS! Fun…fun… Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend everyone!! We'll be helping friends move and hanging out with family possibly at a picnic :o)