Joyful Noise

 Lilly's choir sang at church again on Sunday.  I probably didn't need to include so many pictures, but they were just so darn cute!

Purple Pride

One of Lilly's favorite Christmas presents came from her Nana Bobbi, a jar of colored bath pellets.  Ever bath night she gets to pick what color her bath water will be.  We have tried out red, blue, orange, green, and yellow.  Like a true Wildcat fan, she usually chooses one red and one blue.

This batch turned a little more blue than purple but you get the point!

Winter Picnic

Friday night it was just Lilly and me.  John was out of town reffing high school basketball and we were bored.  Lilly requested pizza for supper so we turned it into an all out living room picnic. 

It was cute at the time, but she has wanted to eat every meal on the living room floor ever since. 

Little Mommy

I got  out of the shower a couple nights ago, and found this:

 Miss Lilly helped herself to the container of Party Mix, which required getting a chair from the dining room to be able to reach, and set up snack time for her and "girl baby." Lilly put her baby up in the booster chair  and if you look closely, they both had little piles in front of them and are both wearing bibs.  She was so proud of herself!  Something tells me she is going to be quite the helper when the new baby arrives!

Just a Phase

   From day one, Lilly has been a vocal baby.  Her vocabulary and language skills are above average (sorry, not just being a proud parent on this one, I have a degree, I would know).  She is inquisitive, comments on people, places, and things, and just loves a good conversation with whoever will listen.  Just after Christmas Lilly's conversation patterns changed, greatly.  Now, I am not one to broadcast my feelings and concerns with regard to my child's development, but this time I think I am aiming to be more informative than anything.  Ok back to Lilly.  Over Christmas break she began "getting stuck" on words and repeating herself.  She would repeat the first word of her sentence several times before moving on.  It was usually the word "I," and was more likely to happen when she was asking a question. The majority of her spontaneous answers came out nice and smooth.  You may be thinking stuttering, but I am not calling it that.  I am calling it dysfluency, the technical term. 
   Hearing her struggle to get her messages across broke my heart.  However, she showed no secondary characteristics; no facial grimaces, no look of panic, no tense muscles.  Just plain flat repetition of words.  I immediately went to my old text books and hit the internet.  Everything I learned in grad school supported the idea that it was a developmental phase and was perfectly normal.  I knew that.  I still know that.  It was just hard to take because her communication skills have always been advanced, and here she was struggling.  I didn't really get upset until I turned to the internet.  I came across article after article talking about how it isn't "normal."  Articles that recommended immediate evaluation regardless of age.  After looking a bit deeper, I noticed that these recommendations were made by people without speech and language degrees.  Some were doctors, some early childhood teachers, some who knows what.  All of them were, and continue to be wrong.
    Lilly's dysfluencies only lasted four or five days and she is back to her old, and always improving, self.  No evaluation was needed, no therapy was provided, and she is just fine.  Moral of the story, check your resources!  People may not know as much as they want you to think they know!

Brutally Honest

I was working with a group of kindergarten kids today.  We were blending through words and one little guy read the word /fat/.  Ok, now put it in a sentence.  The little stinker looked right at me and said, "Your belly is getting fat."  After getting over the initial shock, I laughed, agreed with him, and explained why.  He acted like he understood and we continued on.  Later in the day his classroom teacher came to me and shared that the kid had asked if she too was having a baby.  I am not certain, but I am pretty sure he was implying  that she may have added a little weight over the holidays.  Whoops!

Happy New Year

I don't have any super cute holiday pictures to share, just a quick update of our new year thus far.  I got back to work on Tuesday, after a mostly great 10-day vacation.  The same day Lilly started a new daycare in Holton.  Three of her friends from church go there, and we new it would be a perfect fit.  The little stinker walked in like she owned the place, and barely had time to tell me goodbye before she was off and playing.  Yesterday when I picked her up, she actually cried because it was time to leave.  Needless to say, things are going well.