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I have some funny phrases to share from the kids:
Jonas: I don’t matter if I don’t get that.
I don’t mind + it doesn’t matter = I don’t matter
Sean: Canyon-ball!
canyon ball = cannon ball
A few quick updates on the kids before I forget! This is for posterity sake! 🙂
Jonas: He can zip up his coat by himself! I have two children that can fully dress themselves! Woo hoo!
Karis: She is speaking more. She is using three word sentences. Woo hoo! 🙂 My favorite phrase of hers is: “My mommy” and “My daddy”. She possesses us apparently!
Sean: He is quite the reading and constructing fiend. His latest favorite book is Amelia Bedelia. He thinks she’s quite funny and can’t do anything right. He also enjoys making crafts out of construction paper. He’s been cutting out puzzles out of his drawings.
Karis has had developmental therapy for a almost a year, and speech therapy for about three months. Both are focused in on helping her speech delay. It’s been going well, and in the last month or so, I’ve seen so much growth in Karis’ speech and understanding.
With regards to Karis’ understanding, it is very clear that she’s starting to understand a lot more. She definitely understands when I ask her to do something, whether she actually does it is another question! 🙂 Most of the time, this comes in the form of, “Oh, your sippy? It’s in your room. Go to your room and find it,” and usually she goes and looks in he room.
She is also starting to understand cause and effect. With regards to discipline, she understands when I warn her not to do something again, and that a subsequent disobedience will result in a consequence. Again, whether or not she chooses to obey, is a different question, but she definitely understands! On the plus side, this means that we can also start negotiating with her. Most of the time, this occurs at dinner – “Oh, you want dessert? You need to finish your vegetables.” Sometimes we have to repeat what the terms of our negotiation, but its a huge improvement from earlier this year when she would just throw tantrums.
Karis is also communicating more both with and without words. She is starting to put together a couple of words together, and she will express what she wants. If she can’t say the words, we usually can get a gist of what she wants, and we ask her. If it’s what she wants, she’ll nod. She is also starting to say more new words, and in recent weeks, she’ll say new words without us prompting her. She will hear a new word, and repeat it herself. It’s nice that she’s starting to get more words in her repertoire. Her speech therapist, Mrs. L, is trying to get her to communicate using her words as opposed to whining to get what she wants.
Overall, I’m very encouraged to see Karis’ growth in speech and understanding. I’m sure in a few more months she’ll be saying simple sentences! 🙂
At Jonas’ parent teacher conference, Mrs. R told us that at times, she had a hard time understanding him. She said it wasn’t too often, and she didn’t seem overly concerned. I noticed that at home I had a hard time understanding him, but I attributed it to him being four more than anything.
I asked my friend, Jaime, a speech pathologist if I should get him evaluated. She said that it wouldn’t hurt, and so we had an evaluation done on Wednesday. The speech therapist showed him pictures and asked Jonas what was in the picture, marking how he was pronouncing the words. He repeated a few words and played some games by repeating sounds.
To my relief, the speech therapist said that he was slightly below normal for his age (a score of 81, and a normal score starting at 85). She said that speech therapy wasn’t necessary, though she thought it would benefit him. One thing that Jonas does is let’s air go out of the sides of his mouth (lateral?) as opposed to straight out of his mouth, so that some words sound “slushy” as the therapist would say. One thing that was encouraging for the therapist is that Jonas could make the sounds in isolation perfectly, so hopefully he would need practice.
I was leaning on the side of doing therapy twice a month, which was recommended but by no means needed. The therapist was more than willing to wait 6 months and re-evaluate him again to give him some time. I called the insurance company to see if it would be covered, but it won’t be because it’s not “necessary”. There is a website the therapist recommended to help give us ideas of how to help Jonas.
I’m glad that we evaluated Jonas; it gives me peace of mind that he’s for the most part, normal. I’m also glad that she gave us ideas of how to work with him to make his sounds less slushly.
Me: I had a sad dream last night.
Jonas: Mom, I had a sad dream too.
Me: Oh? What was your sad dream?
Jonas: There was this mean man. And, uh, he would cut of the sleeves of my new shirt.
Me: That does sound sad. That would make me sad too.
Jonas: Yeah. He was very mean. I was very sad.
Me: I’m sorry, honey.
Jonas: Then he cut up all the sleeves of all the shirts!
Me: Wow! That is mean.
Jonas: All the shirts in the whole town. Yeah, he was very mean.
I love hearing Jonas tell me stories.
Karis is starting to use more words. It’s neat to see things finally “click” in her, and I love to hear her babbling more, even though I have no idea what she’s saying. A downside to her increased communication is that she’s an increase in her frustration. She voices her displeasure with screaming and crying.
I wanted to document the words she’s saying.
pee-sss: please
juu-sss: juice, but it really refers to any drink
moe: more
baw: ball
up: up
el-puh: help
mama: mama
guh: older brother (guh guh in Mandarin)
dada: daddy
boe-l: bowl
nooooo: no
ess: yes
shh: shh
puh: puppy/doggy
bah: book
aw duh: all done
uh oh: uh oh
owie: owie
As of January, Karis has had therapy twice a week – on Wednesday morning she has physical therapy with Mrs. Cheryl and on Friday mornings she has developmental therapy with Mrs. Katie. It’s nice to see the progress that Karis has made each week with her therapy, and I think Karis enjoys having one-on-one attention from Mrs. Cheryl and Mrs. Katie.
With her physical therapy, Karis has progressed from walking with holding our hands to walking almost 80-90% of the time now. Mrs. Cheryl is currently working on getting Karis to bend down and squat to pick up things. Karis was hesitant to do this movement at first, and now she’s becoming better at it. The hope is that with the squatting motion, Karis will move towards being able to stand up by herself without pulling herself up (from sitting to squatting to standing up). It’s amazing to see the progress over a two week (sometimes even just one week) period. She picks up things quickly, especially given the fact that I’m not very deliberate in practicing the movements with her.
In Karis’ developmental therapy, Mrs. Katie is really focused on her communication. She will do a lot of turn taking – whether with toys, games, songs, or even stories. She also is teaching Karis to communicate by getting her to repeat words or to sign the words. Mrs. Katie gave me a list of the most common first words that a toddler will learn. Of the words, Karis understand, says or signs the following:
all gone (signing)
baby (understands)
ball (says)
bath (understands)
bye bye (says)
hi (says)
milk (signs, but she really uses the sign for milk to mean drink)
more (signs and says)
please (signs)
open (signs and says)
It’s pretty amazing to see how quickly Karis picks up on signs from Mrs. Katie. I’m glad to see that she’s learning more. Another thing that Mrs. Katie is working with Karis on is getting her to focus her attention on tasks that she might not necessarily want to do. Karis has the tendency to move on from an activity after a short period of time – whether boredom or the fact that it’s too challenging. In order to do this, Mrs. Katie will have sit through an activity, even if she shows that she’s all done with the activity. Mrs. Katie also will encourage Karis to a challenging activity multiple times.
The last thing that I wanted to mention about Karis is that even though she’s a mellow, easy going baby, it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t exhibit the traits of a typical toddler. She’s starting to assert herself more, and she’s starting to throw tantrums when she doesn’t get what she wants. Most of the time, she’s fine after she lets out her steam.
That note was on a billboard* advertising our local Christian radio station. It’s so true! It’s amazing how much children soak up. I have Air1, a national Christian rock radio station, on almost all day while we’re at home, and the kids have really fallen in love with a lot of the songs. Jonas, in particular, has shown us that he’s been listening and is able to sing the chorus of many songs. It’s amazing! Some of our children’s favorite songs (past and present):
- My God’s Not Dead by Newsboys
- Monster by Skillet**
- Tonight by TobyMac
- Your Love is a Song by Switchfoot
- Avalanche by Manafest
- Music by Manic Drive
I love that our kids sing these songs!
* The billboard had a little Asian girl with headphones on.
** It’s pretty cute/funny to listen to Sean growl when he sings this song.
I do not mean to overlook my sweet little boy, so I want to spend some time posting about him. The boy is talking up a storm now a days. I realize that I’m not as good at recording what he’s saying, so I’m going to pick my brain to think about what he’s been saying.
“Dun taw-kuh me!” Don’t talk to me. Jonas has picked up this phrase (well, a lot of phrases) from Sean. When Sean is mad or if he’s tired of you asking him to do something, he’ll respond with this phrase. Jonas has picked up on this. On occasion, when I ask him to do something and he doesn’t want to, he’ll respond with “Dun taw-kuh me!” I have to bite my tongue, but in my mind, I’m thinking, “Excuse me? What did you say to me?” When he says this, it makes me forget that he’s only 2!
“No laff eh me”. No laugh at me. This is another phrase that he has picked up from Sean. Sometimes, Jonas would just be happy when Sean was mad or in trouble. If Sean caught him with any happy expression, Sean would yell, “Don’t laugh at me”. Now, Jonas will tell Sean this, and Sean is actually purposefully laughing at Jonas when he’s in trouble or upset.
“I no do it!” I no do it. Most of the time, this is in response to when I ask if he went poop. Jonas is pretty good about telling me when he goes, but there are occasions where he says he didn’t, even when he did!
“Puh on mai craw-kuhs!” Put on my Crocs! Jonas loves his Crocs. I love his Crocs. I love that he can put on his own shoes with Crocs because they’re so easy. Earlier this week, I faced the fury of trying to get Jonas to put on his Keens because his Crocs were dirty. He kept saying, “Puh on mai craw-kuhs! Puh on mai craw-kuhs!” Needless to say, I did get him to get his Keens on, after many minutes of screaming and crying.
“Dat naw rai!” That’s not right. We like to be silly in our house, and sometimes my husband and I will deliberately say something silly or switch words in a book they are familiar with something else. Jonas is pretty good at catching this, and he’ll tell us when we’re not doing it right.
“Mama! Mama! Puh on see-bell!” Mama! Mama! Put on seatbelt. I am guilty of putting on my seatbelt while I’m backing up. Jonas is EMPHATIC that I put it on (which I know isn’t a bad thing). If I do not put on my seatbelt soon after I start backing up, he escalates to screaming and then thrashing. I guarantee you if you had Jonas in the backseat, you really wouldn’t need the car to remind you to put on your seatbelt! Safety first!
“Luh me see!” Let me see! Jonas wants to see me do almost everything that I do on the computer or in the kitchen. If I don’t submit to his commands, I will squeeze his little body right in front of me so that I can no longer continue what I’m doing. It’s his way of saying, “Hey, it’d be easier if you just let me see first, and then get back to what you’re doing.”
Some excerpts from the boys.
Me: What’s your name Jonas?
Jonas (with a huge grin!): Dee dee! [Dee dee means little brother in Chinese].
Sean: Mom, can you make a playdate with Miss Jessie? I love playing at her house. Last time we went, she made cookies. They were mmm mmmmm good! 🙂
Our Sweet Ts 