"Ready, set....Go!"

Besides today being mom's birthday and having a great bday lunch with her, (in which my grandmother threatened to "smack the crap" out of my dad if he didn't let her pay - she's awesome) I'd have to say that the best part of today was definitely my home visit with the 17 month old kiddo I've been working with for about a month. This poor little boy has a speech delay (which, considering all that I've studied, could be a lot worse) and therefore does not have many words to his vocab, really does not babble at all and rarely imitates the voices and sounds he hears. All in all, he has the current speech development of an 8-12 month old. So, today was an amazing session. I engaged him in some "ready, set...go!" play and he actually began using "mo" for "more" and more amazingly, he started imitating the intonation and rhythm of my "ready, set, go!" vocalizations. It was probably one of the cutest things I've ever heard. This is such a break through, for I've never heard him verbalize or imitate so much. It may not seem much to some of ya'll, but my line of work can be so discouraging, since every child is different and it takes so much work and time to notice a change. So every little bit of improvement is a huge step. After last week's session, I was feeling very discouraged because my kiddo was very cranky and just fussed the entire time without making any verbalizations, which resulted in having to end the session early because he had become over stimulated. So today was definitely a break through and makes me feel so good and excited about my work.

After class tonight I swam some laps. Chloe was in the backyard with me and ran back and forth along the side of the pool while barking as I swam laps. It was possibly one of the funniest things I've ever seen. She's such a hoot. Not quite sure if she was scared for me, or just didn't recognize me in the water. In other news, according to Chris' blog, he's sick in Peru (poor guy, must've drunk the water b/c that happened to me in Ecuador). I feel so badly for him, because that's gotta suck, but he wrote "Being sick makes me miss Ashley even more," which selfishly makes me smile. :)