Ellie/Reagan Conversation

I wanted to document this little episode from today before I forgot. Ellie's verbal abilities came 'all of a sudden' in February, then seemed (to my untrained mind) to stall, or at least progress in pains-takingly slow steps. She has become quite effective at communicating in one-word, or two-word chunks for quite some time and I've been waiting anxiously for the day when she might finally speak in sentences. We've gotten the idea from the way she babbles to herself that she wants to speak in sentences (almost like she's practicing when she's not on the spot), but still doesn't have the confidence to do this. We have been working on teaching her verbs for quite some time, but using them has not come easily to her.

This afternoon Ellie returned from her first day of school in more than a week (last week was fall break). She seemed really happy, in good spirits. Nevertheless, experience has taught us that in spite of whatever pleasant little girl we bring home, come 5:30, she can turn cranky and UN-pleasant without a brief nap.

After spending about 15 minutes of play time together and reading through the notes in her backpack, we reminded her that it was now indeed naptime. She asked to rock. It's hard to turn down snuggle time, so Nathan conceded. After a few minutes of rocking, when he said it was time to lay down, she announced she had to go potty. Not wanting to discourage this form of communication (in spite of how it seeemed coincidentally like a stall technique), we put her on her potty chair. Apparently needing some form of entertainment, she ended up sitting there with a slinky in each hand. Reagan, not wanting to be left out of the fun, had plopped down on the floor in front of her. She looked at Reagan, and proferred her slinkies to him. She said, "Which one, Reagan? This one or that one? That one? Okay! You're welcome!"

Albeit, there were no verbs in the one-sided conversation above, we were still excited about Ellie saying something more than, "Eat!" or "Baby slinky!" or "Outside!" or "purple balloons!" I wouldn't be surprised if it was something often asked of herself at school.

In other news, we were informed via her communication folder that Ellie's class is learning about people who work in the food industry this week and that on Friday the parents are invited into the classroom which will be transformed into a pizza parlor where the kids will seat us, take our orders, cook our pizza and serve us food. Given that she still likes to do the 'stop, drop, and roll' (all the way across a room) from fire awareness week, how long do you think she will want to make her parents dinner?