Emma talking

Emma has been making progress with her vocalizations/talking, but it has been slow going. I find it especially hard - more so than Emma's delayed motor skills - that my two year old daughter has limited expressive language. For example, Emma doesn't point to let us know what she wants, cannot crawl to something and bring it to us to play with, etc. She does have outstanding eye gaze and smiles that are very expressive and we can usually figure out pretty easily what she wants, but I really want more. More than anything else I pray for, I pray that Emma learns to talk so she is understood by everyone.

Yesterday I said a special prayer to St. Theresa the Little Flower to help Emma talk. I believe we have a real connection with St. Theresa and that it is no coincidence that her birthday is the same as Julia's, her feast day is the same day as Emma's birthday, and she was born one hundred years before me. Every time I pray to St. Theresa I feel my prayer is answered.

Today Emma has been very vocal. She has been so quiet for the past few days that I was beginning to worry about her talking. Today was a rare day where we had nothing special to do and no therapies to attend. Emma and I decided to stay home and just play and I put a heavy language emphasis on our playing. Julia was in school and the house was quiet so we had uninterrupted play and Emma was so expressive! For the first time ever I heard Emma say I love you! It wasn't to me - it was to Finnegan - but I was SOOOOO happy to hear her say it and

I went and got my video camera.

While Emma did approximate the I love you sound again, she didn't say it nearly as clear as before I started up the camera. I kept the video running for a bit more of our playing and clipped together some other moments of Emma expressing herself and placed the video below. Way to go, Emma!