Big Talker

Aili's First Sentence!

A couple weeks ago I was getting dressed and Little Ms. Muffin toddled into the room. I put her up on the bed where the cat was having a nap. Aili looooves the cat, and delightedly crawled right over to her, gave her a kiss, and said, "Hi, Kitty!"
Now, I know this isn't a terribly complex sentence, but if you think about it, it does have certain implications about her relationship with language. First, she knows what each of these words mean and can say them each clearly enough to be understood. She's able to string them together in a way that makes sense to a speaker of English. She spontaneously said it without being prompted by me, or without my assembling a similar sentence immediately before it. And she knows the appropriate time to use the greeting.
If you think about the steps of going from aphasic to full verbal communication, this is actually fairly substantial!


Little Ms. Polite

This morning Aili told me (through signs) that she wanted something. I offered her cereal - "no"; toast - "no"; banana - "no"; apple - "no"; milk - "no" (in case you hadn't noticed, 'no' is one of her favourite words these days); juice - nod. Hooray! She wants juice!
I poured her some juice, put the sippy cup on her tray - and she said, COMPLETELY UNPROMPTED BY ME - "Thank you". Complete with the corresponding sign! (Actually it came out something closer to "Tak ye", but was perfectly understandable all the same.)

She also signs 'please' when she wants something, and knows that she's supposed to cough into her hand. That being said, she sprays when she sneezes and thinks it's hilarious when she farts. Ya win some, ya lose some, I guess....