August 25th

Dear Savannah,
Wow, it is hard to believe you turned 11 months old today and next month you will be a year. You have six teeth and two more pushing though...giving you a little trouble in the sleep department, but you are your usual happy self. You are pulling yourself up consistently and cruising. Yesterday you almost got one leg up on the couch...uh-oh! You crawl incredibly faast especially when a gate or door is opened (even in the most silent fashion)....double uh-oh! You are full of personality and love. You laugh all the time, but your temper can peak through when you want something!

As a speech-language pathologist, I continue to be more and more fascinated with language. You say many things in imitation over the past month, "hi dada," "go," and I think even Maya "yaya." Your favorite song is most certainly, "If you are happy and you know it." As soon as you hear it you clap and say, "clap, clap." You love to hear music and do your little bouncy-bouncy-twist-twist dance. I think you are signing milk though not always in context and you definitely understand it receptively.

You are balancing a regular sized spoon in your mouth right now and it is super funny!

Love you lots,
Mommy

Dear Maya,
Where to begin. You have come leaps and bounds in your receptive and expressive language. Your sentences are amazing and it is cool to see you fixing errors in your speech (today you self-corrected "go" to the past tense "went." I can't believe some of the things I am explaining and that you are understanding. You have an inspiring curiousity! Right now you are intrigued by construction vehicles. Still love motorcyles of course! You asked me a couple of weeks ago if you could drive a backhoe when you get older though, so I thought your focus was shifting. Daddy is always saying how amazing your lexicon (fancy word for vocabulary) is. You are starting to challenge us a little with your will and negotiating your own way. It is hard for me to constantly stick to my guns, but I am learning how to give you more of the freedom and independence you crave. I am working on doing your bedroom over that you will eventually share with Savannah. I think this will help you to have more of a space.

It is fun for me to watch your articulation change and grow because I have a particular fascination in speech patterns in preschool children. Your clarity has always been great for familiar listeners. You are starting to add /l/ to you /l/ blends and it sounds so sweet. But, boy, you can say some pretty long words with incredibly intelligibility. You are always asking where people live and wanted to know today where your buddy Lucas lived. I told you Framingham and that it was a tricky word to say. You promptly said the word and said, "See, Mommy, that is not a tricky word to say." I still love the speech errors. You kept saying you wanted to go to Best Buddy the other day for Best Buy. I do miss you calling a hedgehog a "whorehog."

You are sweet as pie and I love to cuddle with you!

Love you lots,
Mommy