Climbing higher

Just when we thought Sophie was getting good at stairs and slides and we wouldn't have to stand an arm's length from her at the playground anymore, she started climbing ladders.  She is really good at it, too, for someone who is less than 3 feet tall.  She climbs straight ones, arched ones, short ones, ones taller than my head, whatever.  Every week for the last month after speech therapy, we've stopped at a park in Bedford.  One day I got tired of having to stand guard as she climbed the big tall ladder, so I told her that was enough.  She was not happy about that at all.

We have been hearing a lot of improvements in her speech and vocalization lately.  She is babbling much more.  Lots of googoogeegeegaagaa (that's a direct quote).  And this week she started lots of high pitched screeching.  Actually, I first noticed it coming home on the airplane.  I'm sure the other 100 people noticed too.  When she would start kicking the seat in front of her, which we had arranged with the ticket counter for Stephanie to sit in, I'd say "quiet feet".  This is something they do in school when she starts slapping or something, they say "quiet hands".  Except every time I'd say it, she'd respond with a good screechy.  We've still not gotten her to reliably reproduce many sounds, but she will do it sometimes.  Especially laughing.  They got her doing this at school.  So one of us will laugh, then she will do a little chuckle, and we'll do it back and forth.

We had the evaluation with the school district, and they said she is eligible to start in their preschool program when she turns 3.  This is good and bad.  Good to have the services available.  Bad A) that she is behind enough to need them and B) now we have to evaluate wether we want to leave the private school that she is currently at.  But they invited us to come observe one day, so Stephanie and I are going to do that soon, to see if their program is comparable.  

BTW, her school, which is a non-profit, only has one fundraiser a year and it is selling Christmas cards.  They have a 12 pack of cards, one done by each kid at the school, that costs $10.  Sophie's is especially cute.  If anyone is interested, email us.