10.25.17 - "I want elephant!"

The speech therapist suggested we practice sentences with Clara using "I want...," "I see....," and "I hear..." Really we have only been practicing "I want" (which comes up so much more often than the other two!) Jack practiced it with her a lot while I was in Colorado with Jane, but for the most part Clara still wasn't putting the words together except as repetition, one word at a time, after Jack (e.g. "I.." "I!" "Want.." "Want!" [whatever]) I'm sure part of the issue is that the third word always changes depending on context, and she hasn't really processed that yet. Most of the words and even the few phrases she's memorized so far are consistent across context. For example "Come here please!" is just a string of three words she says whenever she grabs my hand now. It never changes, and I don't think she knows it's a combination of concepts. It's just an utterance to get me to go with her. "I want" is more flexible and complicated.

That's why I was so pleased tonight when I could see the wheels turning as Clara started to understand. We have a set of 12 finger puppets in the miniature bath "toy box" in the bath tub. She knows the names of all the puppets (zebra, monkey, lion, tiger, giraffe, and elephant), so that's a good start. She took my hand, brought me into the bathroom, peeked through the closed shower curtain and said "Elephant!"

I responded "Say 'I'..." and she responded "I! Want!" but then she didn't know what to say. So I repeated "I want elephant!" and she repeated it back. That's the start.

But since there are 12 of these puppets and she could follow a pattern (She asks for a puppet, I hand it to her, she takes it into the living room to place carefully on the coffee table, and then she returns to ask for the next puppet) we got to repeat it over and over. It was nice when I prompted "Say 'I'..." and she responded with a full three word set on her own ("I want monkey!") It was even nicer when I prompted with only "What do you say?" and she succeeded. By the end of it I didn't have to prompt at all. I just stood behind her and she thought about it for a moment and then said, on her own, "I want tiger!"

I don't expect her to have it down 100% from now on, but it was measurable progress where I could tell she was figuring out how the third word changes but still fits with the first two. So sweet and so encouraging! (Also she was really proud of herself once she lined all the puppets up along the coffee table. She made sure Jack saw it too.)

Playing in her laundry basket.

Other quick notes:

I love when I am singing along to Clara's videos and she gets excited about it and keeps looking at the video, singing along, then turning to make sure I am still singing along too. And she just grins and grins.

I love when I'm driving her somewhere and I have my vanity mirror set up so I can see her in it, and I start singing along to something and can see her staring out the window, unaware that I'm watching her, and she hears me sing a song she likes and smiles, or even half-consciously mouths some of the words.

Getting in on the sitting-on-Dad action.

I love how Jane has started a specific grunty excited fussy noise when she knows she is about to nurse, like she just can't wait to chow down. I also love how when she's nursing she likes to lift her free arm up and touch my nose and grab my mouth and otherwise pat my face.

I love being their mama.

Snuggly muggle in the outfit Beth bought her.