We finally set up the Wii for the first time and while I expected Will to love it (and he does), I did not expect Nora to become as obsessed with it as she has. For someone who can't talk much, she sure is a nag with regards to playing it. She will come up to my face closely, look at me in the eye, flash her most winning smile and while nodding, ask me, "video game?" or in her words "E-o aim?" And if I say no (which I usually do), that does not deter her. She just keeps asking over and over again, in hopes that I will cave. If I insist that the kids have outdoor time (which I do whenever the weather is nice), she will play for a little bit, then come up to me to say she is done playing, and wants to go inside to play video games. The exchange sounds like this, "Un! Go inside? E-o aim?" Today she even pretended to be cold, so that I would allow her to go inside. It was 73 and sunny and she was fully dressed, in the sun, and she told me she was cold and even went as far as pretending to shiver with a trembling lip, wrapping her arms around herself, while asking to go inside. This kid is a stinker! When I called her out on it, she gave me a guilty smile and agreed that she was being a stinker and when back to playing. The funny thing is that once the video game is on, she doesn't really play. She crashes her character into a wall and stays there, and then eventually leaves the room, bored. She must just really love the idea of video games or something. It probably doesn't hurt that 'her' controller is purple - her favorite color.
We recently went on a road trip to Oregon, and on the way there, stopped at McDonald's for lunch and a bathroom break. There were only two tiny stalls in the ladies room, and Will went in one while I went into the other. There wasn't any room for Nora to come into my stall so I had her wait for me right outside of my stall (I could see her feet from the bottom of my door). She was most distressed about being left out of the stall, and kept saying, "eee oooo (me too!)" and trying to climb under the door gap. I kept admonishing her to keep her hands off the dirty floor but she was undeterred from her attempts. We all had a good hand washing after that ;)
The sudden and rapid amount of progress she has made in her speech in the last 3 weeks, has surprised and delighted me. She has gone from only parroting simple words, to volunteering her own words, learning tons of new words and phrases, and stringing new and old words together to make simple phrases and requests. She is just a little sponge right now for new words. I have to say, I think this whole time she hasn't really talked because she is a bit of a perfectionist and didn't want to talk if she couldn't say words properly. She has trouble with a few sounds, particularly "R." About a month ago, I gave her permission to try to say words with hard sounds, in a alternative way. For example, instead of 'water,' she could say 'wa wa.' I don't normally love baby talk or oversimplifying words, but if it got her to at least attempt speech, I felt like that was a big win and could be a stepping stone to learning to speak correctly at last. So ever since then, she has just taken that concept and run with it. I am pleased to observe that her words are indeed becoming clearer over time as well. There are definitely some words that she says, that I cannot understand for the life of me, but for the most part she is able to communicate pretty well. She most struggles with consonants at the beginning of words and certain sounds at the ends of words as well (like adding a plural 'S'). So for example, if she is asking for water, she will say, "wa-wa ease!" or 'run fast' becomes "un ast!" I am hoping she continues to make big strides all throughout this next year, so that she will be ready for preschool in 2018.
One last thing for this month, is that Nora had her very first hair cut. I was a little unsure of how she would do, but I explained it all to her in advance, and I had my hair done first, so that she could watch. In the end, she was a total champ! She sat totally still and straight and followed all of the directions on how to hold her head. Both of our cuts came out really great and she looks so much older all of a sudden with her new, big-girl hair cut!
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