Sweet Pea's Sixth Sense

I have come to believe that Sweet Pea has special powers.  She not only has impeccable comedic timing (she knows exactly when to laugh at jokes), but she also seems to know when I'm getting to a breaking point on something and decides that it is time to show me what she has got.  Maybe she is just cruel and likes to make me suffer, but I highly doubt that my Sweet Pea could be that cruel.  She does like to see Mommy suffer a little, but it's probably only fair since I put her through so much regularly.

The reason I'm sharing this feeling of her having a special power is this...on Friday, April 8th I was having a very hard day and was worrying a lot about Sweet Pea's speech skills or, better said, lack there of.  Wouldn't you know it, for the last week she has been speaking up a storm!  She is saying so many things that sound a lot like what you would expect her to say.  She now has sounds for "thank you", "more", "Lily", "I want", "ball" and I'm sure that there are a lot more that I haven't figured out yet.  The sounds are very hard to decipher out of context, but when coupled with the sign or in a very obvious setting we can understand them.  What excites me is that she is trying to say words ALL THE TIME now!  We say something and she will parrot it back in her own way.  It is wonderful and I'm so excited about what the next few months might bring if she keeps this up.  I need to start listening better and seeing if I can pick up on more "words".

Oh, and another semi-related subject that I am ecstatic about is that Sweet Pea is using her signs to request things more and more without our guidance.  She had been great at just parroting the signs, but she wasn't very good at using them to request something.  Now she will sign help instead of yelling when she wants us to help her with something.  She will sign banana, cracker, cookie (don't worry, we don't normally give her a cookie when she signs it but the girl certainly does try!), milk and just this morning she signed book when she wanted me to get her a book that she couldn't reach.

I'm just so proud of her and I absolutely love these highs where a number of new skills start appearing.  The plateaus are extremely hard, but these developmental growth spurts really do help to make up for those hard times.  When I'm in a down mood like I was on the 8th, I know that it is only a matter of time before she amazes me again, but it's so hard to wait.  In a way I think those low points help to make these highs even higher and more joyous.

Here are a couple of videos of Sweet Pea at a basketball program this weekend:

Making a basket:


Walking, Saying "ball" and kicking: