This is just a benchmark post. It is good to note current conditions so that later we can see how much we have grown or changed. Also, memories fade and it is good to remember details that are easy to forget.

If you spend time with Julia it is easy to see her strong and individual spirit. It is also obvious that she does not speak much or clearly. Being a pretty laid back parent, I have allowed her to grow and work out her own forms of communication. We have been waiting for a light bulb moment and for her speech to blossom out of her, but haven’t seen it yet. Through a course of conversations with several people and an observation from an aunt, we are taking a more active role in pursuing help for her. That role involved an interview today with a state agency to measure her speech deficiency. It is a good news/bad news situation. The bad news is not terrible; it is just that her deficiency is not bad enough for this agency to work with her. The good news is that in every other area Julia is doing very well. This is probably why she doesn’t qualify. She has been clever enough to work out other ways to communicate with us. The lady who visited with us described Julia as being pretty unique. Most kids with speech problems like hers, show issues in other areas. She definitely encouraged us to continue to look into options for Julia.

Our next step is to take Julia back to the pediatrician. We are going to have him check to see if she is “tongue tied” which maybe aggravating her speech issues. Also, we will get his recommendations for speech therapy. Of all the things that worry me, amazingly this has not become one of them. I’m very curious and interested in knowing more. I’m excited to think that we are going to help her across a hurdle.

Just an overview of where she is at now:

• She speaks partial words generally revolving around single consonant sound.
• She has little inflection in her words. She does have plenty of volume control and will speak from a whisper to a shout/squeal.
• She seems to not make many sounds that involve her tongue (although she uses the ‘d’ sound of DaDa well).
• She will make small two or three word sentences.
• Without context, most of her words are not understandable.
• When reading a book she asks her version of “what’s that” and will answer questions about the page.
• She loves to play animal sounds games.
• She loves to sing babble songs while she plays and goes to sleep.
• She uses a combination of signs, facial expressions, words, and pointing/head shaking to express her wishes and needs.
• Hearing is hard to measure on a two year old, but she seems to hear just fine. That is when she wants to. She hears the door open when it is time for Daddy to come home and runs to greet him.
• She is generally a very happy kid, these last several weeks she has struggled more with emotional issues and lots of tears. We don’t know if these are related to this issue or just normal two-year old developments.

The photo is from a super-sweet evening where Julia was all about her Daddy. She pulled him up from his chair to dance with her. They danced for a long time together!

Julia deserves a praise-filled update because of her reaction to changes that occurred a week ago. First, we retired the pacifiers. We bundled all of them together and talked about the need to say good-bye to them. We thanked them for being helpful to us and then they went away. She has asked for them and has been reminded that we said good-bye to them. She doesn’t ask again at that time for them. We went several days without any additional requests until we were in the car on Sunday and she was beyond exhaustion and asked for it. As sad as it is to tell her no, she has been so great about giving them up. She has taken every nap and gone on to sleep at night without them.

Second, we retired daily milk bottles. Mama completely mis-read Julia’s love for milk. I did not think Julia would take milk from a sippy cup, but I also thought she would quit asking for milk too. She gives us really sad faces when she asks for milk and gets it in a sippy cup. She keeps asking for the milk and then only drinks two sips before abandoning the cup. We have increased the amount of yogurt and cheese in her diet to keep dairy and some healthy fat in her life. I do not know how long she is going to hold out on this, but the Mama is determined to not go back to a bottle despite her desire for Julia to drink milk.

Lastly, on Thursday, Julia’s crib side came off her bed. We were dreading the things that come with this piece of freedom, but so far so good. Every night, Julia has gone to bed and stayed in bed, with the exception of trying to follow Emily out of the room when Emily disobediently got out of bed. Amazingly, the girls have left each other alone at night. They are still taking their mid-afternoon naps in different rooms, though. I know Julia is a bit naive about what she could do, but I could not have hoped for a better acceptance of the rules that are associated with her new found freedom!

Our baby is growing up quickly these days! We are so proud of you Julia!

Julia graduated to her big girl bed tonight. When Daddy got home, he removed the side and installed the safety bar. Both girls were excited. Emily understood what was happening, but Julia kept checking on her Daddy to see what was going on.

The girls enjoyed playing together in Julia’s bed. Emily was not pleased when she had to get out at bedtime. When Mommy suggested that we take Julia’s photo, she thought that she needed to have her jammies on first. She is so proud of her bed. She made sure her water was on the same shelf as Emily’s, now that she can get out to drink it.

What a big girl you are Julia. We are proud of you!

Notice that Julia’s mouth is imitating how she is imagining the Mama eating the food off the spoon. I love it!

(27 months) The girls are always finding new things to play and making new favorite games. Julia has been exploring the dollhouse in the last week in new ways. At Christmas when we got the dollhouse she was more interested in dropping pieces down the stairwell or inspecting each piece.

This last week she has become very interested in playing with the dolls and the furniture. One game she plays is to go to her play kitchen and “fix” a bowl of food and then take it to the dollhouse. She takes turns feeding the different dolls with a big spoon. It was hilarious!

Our dollhouse family has grandparents, parents, a son, a daughter, a baby, and two “best friend” dolls. When Julia plays with the family members she sings a little happy song and occasionally interrupts the song with a doll making a comment to another doll like “night-night”. Once the interruption is gone the song resumes immediately. Her favorite dolls to play with are the kids. Emily rarely plays with the baby, but Julia does all of the time. Occasionally other toys work their way into the dollhouse. One day I noticed that a small Elmo doll was riding the rocking horse and playing in the pack-n-play with the baby.

Our Valentine’s Day was a beautiful, sunny and breezy day. It was still cool enough that you wanted to be in the sun, but warm enough you wanted to be outside! For all the snow and cold we had this winter, an early spring was really wonderful to enjoy. We spent the morning at the Knoxville Botanical Garden in our special “Secret Garden”. The kids drank up the sun and loved moving around.

Little Julia has been struggling these last couple of days. The inner Julia is trying to come out and she hasn’t figured out how to do that.

Yesterday, we had a lot of crying over everything. The details do not matter, but she cried if you said “Yes” or “No” to the same request. After a while and a little Mommy comfort, it seemed to pass and she was ok. Today, we had a rash of misunderstandings. Julia would hear something and interpret it. Then she was devistated when she realized that it wasn’t happening. For instance, Emily was playing pretend shower and Julia thought she was going to take a bath. She was in hysterics when she did not get a bath.

I guess the hardest part of watching Julia figure all of this out is watching her not be able to communicate what she is thinking. I wonder what she is going to discover as she blossoms through this next stage.